What’s on Thursday: Eric Reed, Bulmers Live and Monsters, Dinosaurs, Ghosts

SAFE BETS

Bulmers Live at Leopardstown 2015
Leopardstown Racecourse, Dublin 6pm €15 01-2890500

This year’s sequence of gigs at Leopardstown bolts out of the traps with Paddy Casey, continues through June (Hot Sprockets, Delorentos) and July (Hermitage Green, High Kings, Damien Dempsey), and pushes past the post into August (The Stunning, Human League). One, two, three – and they’re off!

THEATRE

Monsters, Dinosaurs, Ghosts
Peacock Theatre. Previews until Jun 8 Opens Jun 9-27 8pm, €13-€25
abbeytheatre.ie

At the zenith of wishful thinking, people will refer to Northern Ireland’s “post-conflict” society. It’s a utopian ideal, certainly, but not one that’s particularly useful for drama, which thrives on crisis. Belfast playwright Jimmy McAleavey makes his Abbey debut with a play about the aftermath of the Peace Process (where conflict hasn’t gone away, you know). Nig and Joe are two former soldiers, drifting through a half-life of therapy, medication and guilt. Will one last operation in the new province bring meaning to their actions?

JAZZ

Eric Reed
JJ Smyths, Aungier st., 9pm, €15,
jjsmyths.com

Philly pianist Eric Reed (below) was part of Wynton Marsalis’s neo-con juggernaut back in the early 90s, playing on some of the trumpeter’s key albums, and he has also mixed it with legends like Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson. Reed is on a European tour and he’s stopping off in Ireland for two dates with Dublin guitarist John Moriarty and an international quartet.