What’s on this weekend: Metropolis, Claudia Schwab, Beatles Festival and more

Pick of the Week

FESTIVAL
Metropolis
RDS, Dublin, Sat-Sun, from noon €145.50/€79.50 ticketmaster.ie
From the outside, this festival might look like a bit of a gamble for Pod and Hidden Agenda, but there's no doubting the quality of the cut of its musical cloth. New kid on the festival block Metropolis has plenty of big names to put up in lights, including The Roots (above), Hot Chip, Tiga, Giorgio Moroder, Mark Ronson, Floating Points (performing tracks from this week's Album of the Week, no less) Jamie XX and Chic, along with some local favourites. Apart from the music, there is plenty more on offer. The festival – perhaps taking a leaf out of the book of the likes of the Red Bull Music Academy, which is currently in Paris – has set up a Conversations series.

There'll also be a panel discussion on the legacy of the Haçienda, with Factory Records and M Person Mike Pickering, designer Ben Kelly and DJs Dave Haslam and Greg Wilson. John Cooper Clarke will be in conversation and performing at different times, and Giorgio Moroder will also have a stage to himself. A panel on music and film features actors Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Ruth Bradley with writer and director Paul Duane – though oddly no composers or musicians. Street artist Joe Caslin, politician Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, theatre director Garry Hynes, Imma director Sarah Glennie and director Jim Sheridan will debate What the Fuck Is Irish Culture? and M&E Design and The Project Twins will examine music and graphic design. A host of the acts are DJing at after parties around Dublin throughout the weekend, including Hot Chip, Questlove, Flight Facilities and many more, though you’ll need Metropolis tickets to get in the door there too.

Friday

TRAD
The Claudia Schwab Trio with Padraig Meehan
The Glens Centre, 8.30pm €12/€10, theglenscentre.com
This Austrian-born composer and fiddler Claudia Schwab has been exploring some intriguing sounds, through her own work and in tandem with collaborators including Tucan and the Cork Gamelan Ensemble. Tonight she's joined by ex-Nervous Animal Padraig Meehan.

MATHROCKSYNTHJAZZ
Alarmist
Sugar Club, Leeson St, Dublin, 8pm, €22/€10, thesugarclub.com
Musically speaking, the most interesting frontiers are not always the out-where- the-trains-don't-run ones. Dublin four-piece Alarmist are more interested in the inner spaces, the Venn diagram where math rock meets synth pop meets downtown jazz. Their much-anticipated debut album, Popular Demain, was released on November 2nd and will be available in various formats at this launch event.

THEATRE
Foxy
Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Ends Nov 7 8.15pm €10/€6 projectartscentre.ie
"You're a white, middle-class, well-educated male," the protagonist of Foxy is told during an exchange on an online forum. "To you, everyone else is 'other'." It's a fair cop in Noelle Brown's engagingly told, subtly realised and still quite impassioned work in which prejudices may start small but can swell and fester. The only thing "other" about Mark Fitzgerald's everyman is his red hair, which leads him to confront the "acceptable prejudice" of gingerism in society (played here by the internet). It leads him elsewhere, though, through the folds of memory and happenstance discovery, into the institutional prejudices that face a Traveller family, depicted by Michael Collins. Using moments of spry movement and music (performed live by Sarah Kinlen) director Oonagh Murphy and her charming cast ensure a fluid, humorous and affecting telling.

FESTIVAL
Dublin Beatles Festival
Various venues, Dublin, Fri-Sun dublinbeatlesfestival.com
The organisers said the event wouldn't go beyond the first year, and yet – despite no funding – here we are with number three. The line-up is vaguely familiar (tribute bands, table quizzes, etc), but there are two must-sees: The Beatles Sessions (The Cobalt, Friday, 8pm, €16), featuring Biggles Flys Again, Vyvienne Long and Duncan Maitland; and a superb documentary, Good Ol' Freda (about Freda Kelly, secretary to the Fab Four), which is followed by a public interview with Newstalk's Tom Dunne (Grand Social, Sunday, 3.15pm, €14). Groovy, etc.

TRAD
Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill and Kevin Burke
Skibbereen Town Hall, 8pm, €25 fiddlefair.com. Also (as a duo) Sat, Sun, Dublin; Tues, Wed, Kerry; Thurs, Clare
Now here's a rare treat: a chance to catch Martin Hayes and Bothy Band veteran and long-time revered fiddler Kevin Burke trade tunes in the company of the best accompanist in the genre, Dennis Cahill. As we celebrate our first National Digital Week, this trio promise to mark the occasion con brio. Rinse out your ear canals for this one.

DEBUT
Hidden Agenda
Button Factory Dublin 11pm €10/€8/€5 facebook.com/LukeFono
As 2015 has progressed, Fono's Real Joy has gained more and more traction. A smart, clubby, hooky house track with growing across-the-boards appeal, Real Joy has ensured Brighton producer Luke Fono has had a heck of a year. The track has also meant Duke Dumont, Major Lazer and Joey Bada$$ tapping him for remixes with more due in 2016. You can probably expect more Dublin appearances too after his debut at Hidden Agenda tonight.

LIVE
Flight Facilities

[ mandelahall.com  ]

Ahead of their appearance at Metropolis in Dublin, Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell take flight to Belfast. Given their recent crowd-pulling exploits at Vicar Street and Body & Soul, you can expect a good turn-out for the Australian duo’s fully-formed house and tech snappers and bangers as demonstrated on last year’s fine Down to Earth debut album. Support comes from Manchester edit and electro legend Greg Wilson, who’ll also be spinning at Metropolis as well as talking about the Hacienda.

Saturday

ART
VUE National Contemporary Art Fair
Royal Hibernian Academy, 15 Ely Place, Dublin Until Nov 8
Terrific opportunity to sample the breadth of art being made now, including a Stoney Road showing of the inaugural Savill Prize, Richard Gorman. Participating galleries include Taylor Galleries, Pepper- canister Gallery, Ib Jorgensen, Fenderesky Gallery, Graphic Studio Gallery, Hillsboro Fine Art, SO Fine Art, Molesworth Gallery, Stoney Road Press, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Green on Red, Eight Art Gallery, Cross Gallery, Solomon Fine Art, Catherine Hammond Gallery, Olivier Cornet Gallery, Claremorris Art Gallery, Oonagh Young Gallery/Artbox, Nag Gallery, Gormley's Fine Art, IMMA and The Irish Arts Review.

HOUSE
Strictly Deep
The Hangar Dublin 10.30pm €17/€15/€13
Fans of pedigree house releases will already know about Hull DJ and producer John Wafer. As wAFF, he has been behind a clutch of really strong, vibrant, bright cuts for labels such as Hot Creations, Cocoon and others. What people are digging on tracks such as Vibrationz or the Rainbows EP is the way in which Wafer creates tunes with an instant connection to the dancefloor. It's why big names such as Masters At Work, Eats Everything, Hot Since 82 and others have hit him up for collaborations and remixes. Support from Kaily, Jade and Elliot & Jordan Kinlan.

Sunday

SINGER-SONGWRITER
Samantha Crain
The Workman's Club Dublin, 8pm, €14.50 theworkmansclub.com
A frequent visitor to Ireland (who doesn't outstay her welcome), US singer-songwriter Samantha Crain performs songs from her excellent latest work, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, as well as previous albums, Kid Face (2014), and Songs in the Night (2009). 

ART
3 Different Nights, recurring
Grace Weir. Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin Until Mar 6 imma.ie
Survey show including some 30 works by Grace Weir, including premiers of three new film commissions, A Reflection on Light, Black Square and Dark Room, and two new series of paper works, The history of light (Betelgeuse) and Future Perfect. Weir's underlying preoccupation lies in "aligning conceptual knowledge and theory with a lived experience of the world," which often entails explorations of scientific method and history. 

BACK IN THE DAY
Pyg Sundays
Pgymalion Dublin, 9pm €10/€5
Nicky Siano's back pages read a little like the story of house music. Having cut his teeth at David Mancuso's seminal Loft parties in New York, Siano's work at The Gallery in the mid-1970s branded him as a DJ with real style, flamboyance and musical intensity. He later DJ-ed at such Big Apple favourites as Studio 54, Le Jardin and Body & Soul, but The Gallery is what defined him and allowed him to introduce acts and DJs such as Grace Jones, D.C. La Rue, Loleatta Holloway, Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles to bigger audiences. Support from Kelly-Anne Byrne.

POETRY
Gerard Smyth and Frank Ormsby
Books Upstairs café, Dublin, 3pm €5 booksirish.com
One of the North's finest poets, Frank Orsmby, and poetry editor of The Irish Times Gerard Smyth read from their latest collections. Fine words in a utterly charming setting: what a fine way to pass an afternoon.