Hot Press: History in the Making
3Arena, Dublin
★★★★☆
It’s 11.50pm, well past 3Arena’s bedtime, when Niall Stokes of Hot Press announces: “You won’t get jokes out of me. I am not Tommy Tiernan.” When Stokes set up his influential music magazine, it might have seemed something closer to a joke – “I give you five issues,” one RTÉ editor told him.
Fifty years later, with a crowd of 13,000 in attendance, few people are laughing at Hot Press on Friday night, even with and his fellow comedians Tony Cantwell, Rachel Galvo and Emma Doran among those taking the stage to help celebrate the magazine’s half-century.
The comedians appear between a stacked line-up of Irish acts that includes The Boomtown Rats, Van Morrison, The Frames, Imelda May and Damien Dempsey.
After opening with a speech by Michael D Higgins – not just a former president of Ireland but also a former Hot Press columnist – the gig showcases a cavalcade of talent, with a performance by Clannad followed by Irish Women in Harmony and Gavin James.
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The writer Emmet Kirwan bleeds into the electronic dance duo Belters Only before the mantle is taken up by the rapper Denise Chaila, who dedicates Black Is the Colour to the people of Minnesota and Palestine. Her harp-accompanied tribute is not the only nod to the politics of music; Dempsey dedicates his song Colony to Venezuela, Minnesota, Palestine and Greenland.
Morrison performs the kind of red-hot blues you’d expect to hear in a New Orleans bar that serves its drinks ice cold. Gloria, a song that is often covered but seldom hits the heights of his original 1964 recording, with Them, is a particular highlight.
The Frames ignite the arena with Revelate, from Fitzcarraldo, their second studio album. Glen Hansard, the band’s singer, delivers a rip-roaring set in which he makes plain his appreciation of Hot Press: Irish acts have at times been received by NME, the British music magazine, “more like the enemy”, he says.
If we need any more convincing that the future of Irish music is in safe hands, it’s provided by Florence Road, the young Bray band, who deal a James Bond intro track and a pop hit in their three-song set.
The substantial torch that is the legacy of Irish music is carried by Noel and Mike Hogan of The Cranberries, who are joined by Dermot Kennedy for modern takes on Zombie, Linger and Dreams.
Imelda May delivers an energetic set before joining the Rats for a homage to Thin Lizzy, Phil Lynott celebrated with a performance of The Boys Are Back in Town.
There’s an intoxication to the evening: for a dazzling moment the answer to the question of whether music can save your soul is glaringly obvious. The past 50 years of Irish music would say that it can.
