I think all of us enjoy being able to say that we knew a band or artist before they were famous. It is of course purely ego driven, but being able to brag and I say that you always knew that they were going to make it is one of those glorious little pleasures. Through the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to see numerous acts go on to achieve massive things from their early days in Irish music, examples include Gavin James, The Academic, Walking on Cars, and others. Another of these came in the summer of 2016 when I saw a band called MKAI play the famous Cork venue, Crane Lane – the band have since changed their name, and True Tides have started to do very well for themselves.

In the last year, True Tides have started to carve out a reputation for themselves for creating catchy indie rock songs that instantly get stuck in your head and get you dancing. There was an infectious energy to the music that the band were created, an energy that is also clearly in evidence in their live shows, as was seen when I had the pleasure of seeing the band support Delorentos in the Olympia Theatre in November 2018.

It was this performance, as well as the series of quality singles, that inspired me to tip along to the bands headline show in Whelan’s in Dublin back in April of this year. It lived up to expectations.

It is easy to forget that True Tides are still effectively a band who are just starting out on their musical journey. This was an incredibly accomplished performance from the band as they rattled through their setlist with a confidence and an assurance that was impossible not to be impressed by.

In the past year, the band have been seeing their singles get a lot of radio play across all the Irish stations, and that was evidenced by the fact that everyone was sang back completely by the crowd in attendance. The songs that were as of yet unreleased were also greeted with total enthusiasm by the crowd, and it was clear that there is still a lot of great music to come from the group.

Support on the night came from Dublin electronic band, Tanjier, and it was another set that I thoroughly enjoyed. For a few years now, the Dublin outfit have been building a solid discography for themselves, as well as a reputation for excellent live shows, and all these aspects were on show during the half hour set before True Tides.

There were several stages across the night where the different members of  True Tides seemed completely blown away by what was happening and the sheer level of the support that was coming from the crowd. Every line was screamed back, every song treated like a single, and the smiles never once left the faces of those on stage. This was a pleasure to experience as we got to see a band who are only going to get better. Something to look forward to.

MK