Day three of the great gourmet gig shindig, but there are sad signs of festival fatigue at large. The crowds seem to have dwindled and buzz isn’t quite what it was on Friday and Saturday – hopefully this is more to do with it being a school night than any comment on the festival…

Day two of our local showcase spectacular, and it’s a beautiful night for seeking out new musical talent. Having studied the form, we’re obviously hoping not to miss anything that turns out be brilliant; despite the frantic dashes between venues, we occasionally get the opportunity to stop, chat and compare notes with other hacks…

State has had to get in training for 2009’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival. The annual Dublin binge-gigging session, with Temple Bar as its linchpin, necessarily involves regular jogs, and sometimes sprints, across the Liffey and Dame Street, lest some bright, desperate-to-impress new light of the Irish music scene be cruelly missed by punters…

In retrospect, it had all the makings of catastrophe about it. London ska-pop legends Madness had reformed for a one-off weekend reunion in North London, and elected to turn it into something of a ‘Best of British’ showcase. On the bill were newcomers Gallon Drunk and Flowered Up, followed by Ian Dury and Morrissey.…

You’re Only Massive, and yet the venue’s only tiny. Not only that, no one seems to know where it is. It depends where you read about it, it seems (and you can read about a previous article in State here.). Hideaway House is an ordinary suburban semi, sitting on Deansgrange Road, the leafy south-side’s…

When I first heard them something stirred within me. It was a typically dire Scottish summer’s evening in 1981, and I was sitting alone in my dad’s car, as many of us did during the golden age of CB radio. Sadly, my schoolmates, Pioneer and Velocity Girl, weren’t available to chat on channel 14,…

If there’s one thing Meteor Music Awards does peerlessly, it’s living up to everyone’s expectations. As a showbiz event, it knows its public inside out and feeds them everything they want, like zookeepers throwing fish at penguins. Indie snobs mightn’t like it but, as it proves year-in, year-out, this show isn’t for them –…

The commentators are saying that Ireland needs an Obama-like icon to lift us out of our current economic and social gloom; a figurehead to inspire celebration, to provide a pointer to a new and promising horizon. Well, wherever there’s a cause, there’s usually Bono and co. providing the timely, rousing, crowd-pleasing soundtrack. They’ve got…

The Point of the whole refurbishment has now become spectacularly clear. While The O2 is still very much a building site, press were yesterday allowed a sneaky peek of Dublin’s newest gig venue, two-and-a-half months before it’s due to open its doors to Kings Of Leon on December 19th – and State came away…

On Sunday, the heavens opened. Now, this may not be a muddy-fielded squelchfest but rain in the city brings its own hardships. Especially as it’s that relentless, miserable rain that attacks your jeans, your boots and turns crossing the road between venues into wading across small lakes. However, State is very happy for the…

State begins Saturday by doing its bit at the morning’s Mentor Speed-Sessions; we’re all chatting, suggesting, emoting, whingeing and enthusing about this beautiful music business we all, to one extent or another, adore. These sessions are a great idea for bands and their managers – and not just those showcasing at HWCH either. Every…

Dublin’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival, now in its sixth year, is one of the highlights of the nation’s musical calendar. Not only is it a country-wide Battle of the Bands competition to get on the bill in the first place, for the new generation of Irish ‘next big things’, it’s a possible springboard…

Next SXSW, State plans to split itself into at least three people. ‘Getting the hang of it’ is bittersweet: you have the element of pride in your achievement when you’ve finally mastered your way around the downtown venues, can judge the distances between them and plan an effective assault on the evening’s entertainment; the downside is that you get the feeling you’ve missed so much during the learning process, if only you could spool back with the knowledge you have now.

Today was the day that State remembered to eat. For all that people rave about the amount of ‘choice’ available in America, and legendary status of this country’s gargantuan portions, Austin is a city where you really have to search for a decent breakfast.