It’s fair to say that we have had our eyes on Gurriers ever since we caught them playing at Alphabet in Brighton on Friday 12th May 2023 as part of ‘The Great Escape’ new music festival. This being one of the three sets they were performing for the festival.
A while back they announced their European and UK ‘Come And See’ tour which is running at the moment. Sadly there was no Brighton gig! Then this week they announced a second leg of the tour with nine new concert dates and one of these is going to be here in Brighton…Thank God!
“So what’s all the excitement about?” I hear you cry! Well we managed to catch up with Gurriers again in Henham Park in Suffolk as part of last year’s ‘Latitude’ festival. They closed the second day (Saturday 22nd July) with a terrific performance in a wood in the rain. My notes of the time read “miss them at your peril”. In fact, here’s the full report:
GURRIERS (TRAILER PARK 10:30pm – 11:30pm)
Well where do you go after that….to the Trailer Park stage, for my only performance there across the three days and my last live experience of the day. It’s like a film set of a 1960’s glitzy trailer park that has seen better days, and is located within the woods. I noted that this was a particularly popular hangout for late teens, who no doubt were drawn there for all the fun of the fair. I’m here to finally get my first injection of Gurriers, who are yet another act coming at us out of Dublin. They are another act that were last in Brighton back in May when they played ‘The Great Escape’. They performed three sets, one at The Folklore Rooms, one at The Prince Albert and the other was at Alphabet (Review HERE).
This young exciting outfit consisting of Dan Hoff, Emmet White, Ben O’Neill, Mark MacCormack and Pierce Callaghan, have already been making waves and they formed on the cusp of a global pandemic, and already embodies the emerging Irish genres of post-punk, noise rock and shoegaze, that the likes of Thumper, Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital have been flying for a while.
We are given 11 tunes, the last of which ended at 11:16pm, but their slot could have finished at the allotted 11:30pm, but I reckon that might have been the case that they simply didn’t have any more material at this point in time. Things were about to get ‘wild in the woods’ as we were positioned (as we often are) at the very front, but those revellers behind us were intent on having a fabulous time. This was the most boisterous crowd that I encountered throughout our three days here, despite the light rain. Gurriers were performing, for all tense and purposes, in an adapted caravan and I was endeavouring to keep under the overhanging awning in order to keep dry. I could look up into the tall trees surrounding us and watch the light raindrops falling down towards us, as well as green circular lights being beamed onto the top of the canopy. It looked like Captain Scarlet’s sworn enemy Mysterons had arrived, and we were to be taking over……but by Gurriers music!
My notes read “miss them at your peril” after they had energetically and successfully delivered ‘Nausea’, 2020 single ‘Boy’, ‘Des Goblin’, ‘Dipping Out’ and ‘Prayers’. I couldn’t really take many notes as we were being knocked about all over the place, but when folks did fall over, those around them immediately lifted them to their feet. It was all fun with no malice. ‘A Little Life’ and ‘No More Photos’ followed before we arrived at one of their set highlights, that being the current single ‘Top Of The Bill’, which did remind me of Fontaines D.C. as it was more melodic than that had gone before and the vocals sounded like Grian Chatten. ‘Sign Of The Times’ was up next and this benefitted from a decent bass riff which was accompanied by the relevant drumming pattern. I felt sorry for the bassist as he was shouting out the vocals at the top of his voice and yet he wasn’t given a microphone, maybe he shouldn’t have had one, but it certainly looked as though they should give him one.
The February 2023 single, ‘Approachable’, was their penultimate number and saw the vocalist jump off the four foot high stage and have a mosh with the revellers for some fun in the wet. They left us with ‘Come And See’ and that was our lot. They were yet another must see Dublin act! I hope that they head our way soon.
Gurriers setlist:
‘Nausea’
‘Boy’
‘Des Goblin’
‘Dipping Out’
‘Prayers’
‘A Little Life’
‘No More Photos’
‘Top Of The Bill’
‘Sign Of The Times’
‘Approachable’
‘Come And See’
So there you go, a new band not to be missed! Clearly Jools Holland also thinks so as Gurriers were on ‘Later…With Jools Holland’ last night performing ‘Approachable’ – Watch the video HERE.
You can catch them performing at the Chalk venue in Pool Valley, Brighton on Wednesday 26th March 2025 courtesy of FORM promoters. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased from HERE and HERE.
