Words by Ed King
On Friday 23 February, Dublin’s post punk noise rockers (with a techno twist) Gilla Band will be headlining at The Castle and Falcon – Balsall Heath’s bustling live music venue, bang on the No. 50 bus route if you want to sink a few shandies.
Doors open for the show at 7:30pm with the evening scheduled to finish by 11pm. Minimum age of entry is 18 years old, with tickets priced at £16.50 (including booking fee).
For more information direct from the venue and links to online tickets sales, click here.
Born in 2012, Gilla Band (nee Girl Band) have knocked out three studio albums since signing the Rough Trade: Holding Hands with Jamie (2015), The Talkies (2019), Most Normal (2022)
Winning critical acclaim from the get go for both their fresh production approaches – throwing anarchic f*ck you rock and punk sensibilities into a Detroit techno infused blender – and their storming live shows, Gilla Band are a firm fixture on the ‘but-you-have-to-actually-see-them’ list of contemporary bands.
Once described as “genuinely dangerous, like one last rave before the apocalypse”, Gilla Band are renowned for their raw and energetic sets, with frontman Dara Kiely heralded for his fearless on-stage persona and both witty and seemingly abstract lyrics. There’s a pretty good example of this a few lines below too (with a video you can get more than a little lost in).
Gilla Band’s latest and twelve track LP, Most Normal, released on 7 October 2022, saw ‘Backwash’ and ‘Eight Fivers’ championed by mainstream press like The Guardian, whilst music magazine Pitchfork cited ‘Post Ryan’ as “one of their most unnervingly even-keeled examples to date”.
Coming to The Castle and Falcon before heading out across the UK, Gilla Band also have some mainland Europe dates in the dairy – with a smattering of festival appearances as spring turns to summer.
Us lucky Brummies don’t have to travel to The Netherlands to catch them though, but be warned tickets are selling out quickly for The Castle and Falcon show.
And if you need a bit more of a nudge in the right direction, and an audio/visual example of some of the hyperbole above, check out the video for ‘Eight Fivers’ below:
‘Eight Fivers’ – Gilla Band
Gilla Band will be playing at The Castle and Falcon on Friday 23 February. For more information direct from the venue and links to online ticket sales visit: www.castleandfalcon.com/events/gilla-band
For more on Gilla Band visit: www.gillaband.com
For more from The Castle and Falcon visit: www.castleandfalcon.com