Many great artists have played in Kilkenny over the years. The city has seen Bob Dylan, Neil Young, James Taylor, and this year plays host to everyone’s favourite giant-chested-country-singer Dolly Parton. Last weekend, at a smaller venue, the city hosted two of Ireland’s upcoming artists, Dublin’s Kinetics, who were supporting the south-east’s Saving J. I hadn’t seen The Kinetics before, and I must say I was definitely impressed. They play their own kind of post-Strokesian rock, a little bit like The Kooks, and a little bit like everyone else too. While they’re nothing new, nothing unique, they are definitely entertaining. The Kinetics were nominated for Best New Band at this year’s Meteor Irish Music Awards, and rightly so, as Saturday night’s performance highlighted that both they and Saving J are definitely better than a lot of what’s currently being played on local radio here.

Kinetics’ frontman, Gaz Harding is a flamboyant frontman, and has all the chutzpah and energy needed as a lead singer to stand out from the crowd. And not only do they have the look, they have the songs to go with it. ‘Decisions’ and ‘Run, Run, Run’ are great rocky tunes, while ‘Bite the Bullet’ was definitely a fan favourite, and had many of the ladies in the venue up near the stage jiggling in time to the Kinetics’ powerhouse riffs. When Harding announced that ‘Senorita’ was up next, I (and I’m sure others) was hoping for a Justin Timberlake cover, but the band have their own song with the same title that is excellent in its own right. Their singles ‘A Smile’d Crack Your Face’ (from their EP High Horse Olympics) and ‘Shuffled Your Feet’ were highlights and left the crowd longing for more.

Lucky the next band were just as good, if not better. Headlining the event were quasi-locals Saving J, who have also received critical acclaim themselves, being named one of Hot Press Magazine’s Best Unsigned Band in recent years. They opened with recent single ‘Valentine’, and it was hard to imagine how things could get better from there. ‘Valentine’ is centred on a mesmerizing keyboard riff, and it was this radio quality that propelled it to number 2 in the Irish Download Charts last month.

There were many highlights to their set, ‘Mixed Up World’ (the B-Side to ‘Bus Stop’) is an excellent tune that has elements of Matthew Sweet’s ‘Where You Get Love’, and has a great sing-along quality to the music. ‘Spiderblind’ is another standout, and shows off Liam Redmond’s guitar virtuosity. The other musicians are equally talented, and Graham Hynes’ bass combined with Paul Hindle’s drums are definitely the band’s driving force. Singer Sean Redmond, who hates “cold tea”, and loves The Pixies and Converse shoes, could well be Ireland’s answer to REM.

The set has a small bit of lag in the middle with ‘Downtown Bliss’ and ‘Fear of the Unknown’, but the band are only really starting out so they’re bound to write and record better songs to take their places on the set. This was the only blip in what was otherwise a wonderful performance, and the band has really improved on the last time I saw them. The band had loads of fans dancing for debut single ‘Bus Stop’, which was definitely the high point for me.

If I had one qualm to make about this glorious night’s entertainment, it would be the fact that the Saving J tune ‘ABC’ goes all the way from A to P, but then runs out of stream. Where have all the other letters gone?

More about The Kinetics: http://www.myspace.com/kinetiks1
More on Saving J: http://www.savingj.com/

When making most anticipated lists, you always seem to forget something, that at an earlier stage you thought “hey, this is going to be fantastic”, and since it is so far in the future it has left your consciousness for a while.

Two albums have returned to mine…
The Rosewood Thieves - Rise And Shine
Should be a marvellous album if their Lennon/Dylan-influenced EPs are anything to go by. You can’t really have better influences than those. Plus they’ve got an ex-Whiskeytowner on board.

Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams
Word on the street is that this is utterly fantastic, the street in question is the one I live on. I was the mouth those words came from. This isn’t out properly til March, so til then you’ll have to get our your copy of Rubies and click on this link. Make sure to have a few buddies around.
http://www.harmoniummusic.com/junk/Destroyer.txt

So by now you should have read BBC’s Sound of 2008 poll, you may even have checked out some of the artists on Youtube. But how about you indulge me for a while. I like being indulged. These are the albums (by both established and new acts) that I’m really looking forward to hearing this year. This list is in alphabetical order, because if I gave them numbered positions my #1 would more than likely end up being pure trite.

The Hold Steady - TBC
Look out for this at the top of TWM’s list. And maybe mine too.

Michael Jackson - TBC
He can do it. You know he can.

Matisyahu - TBC
I loved Youth. Then I listened to his earlier albums. They were great too. Should be good.