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Music

30th May 2017

5 times the Royal Hospital Kilmainham has hosted amazing gigs

Tony Cuddihy

It’s one of the best Dublin live music venues out there.

The Royal Hospital Kilmainham is synonymous with some of the best live music experiences in Dublin over the last decade, and this year’s Bulmers Forbidden Fruit festival promises to be the first great event of the summer.

Bon Iver, Aphex Twin, Lisa Hannigan are just some of the big names associated with this year’s event, but before we look forward we’ll take a look back at five shows that got the venue hopping.

Where else to start but with…

Blur (2013)

It took roughly five seconds of ‘Girls & Boys’ for the crowd to know they were in for something very special – what a night this was.

Credit: Paul Kelly

Damien Rice (2008)

It’s hard to believe that it’s almost ten years since Damien Rice supported the only artist he ever idolised as a child, the late and great Leonard Cohen, at the historic Dublin venue.

Playing just a short set to allow the main act more time to perform, Rice still managed to bring the place to a shuddering standstill with this rendition of ‘Delicate’.

Credit: TheDamo31

Tame Impala (2016)

From the maudlin to the madness; Tame Impala stole the show last year in the glorious weather, the Australian psychedelic outfit stealing Bulmers Forbidden Fruit with a memorable set that included the brilliant ‘Let It Happen’.

Pure magic.

Credit: Mr Techoman

Kodaline (June 2015)

As star-making turns go, this was one of the best. This will go down as a seminal moment in the lives of Steve Garrigan and co. as they absolutely tore the place asunder and announced themselves as Ireland’s next massive thing.

Some many goosebump moments.

Patti Smith (2015)

Nobody should try to keep up with Patti Smith, even at the age of 68. Her performance at the Royal Hospital Kilkmainham in 2015 was a high point on the Irish live music landscape that year.

The high priestess of the New York underground was at her most cathartic, her most flamboyant and her most evocative in front of the Dublin crowd.