Puscifer brought The Normal Isn’t Tour to The Helix in Dublin last night (Thursday, November 12, 2026), marking their first Irish headline appearance since 2023.
Walking into The Mahony Hall at The Helix, the ground rules are laid out early: put your phone away, or risk “vaporisation”. Maynard James Keenan’s notoriously strict no-phone policy enforced by stern pre-show announcements and watchful security immediately strips away the sea of glowing screens that plagues modern gigs. In a seated-and-standing theatre space like The Helix, that enforced presence turns the room into a captive audience before a single note is played.
Opening duties fall to American comedian and guitarist Dave Hill, whose deadpan, delightfully warped sensibility is the exact right kind of weird to loosen up a Dublin crowd. Mixing dry stand-up banter with genuinely sharp guitar playing alongside a backing rhythm section, Hill treats the opener slot like a self-contained comedy-rock fever dream complete with absurd local pickup lines and a signature exit riding a miniature bicycle off the stage.
When Puscifer assemble on a multi-tiered, theatre-style stage with Mat Mitchell (guitar/synths), Josh Moreau (bass), and Gunnar Olsen (drums) locked into the pit below it becomes immediately clear this isn’t a standard rock gig.
Keenan and co-vocalist Carina Round operate as full theatrical personas, Bellendia Black and Fanny Grey, clad in striking monochrome and crimson costumes, dramatic makeup, and wigs. Rather than hiding in the shadows as he often does with Tool, Keenan moves front-and-center in sharp silhouettes and strobing light, trading lines with Round like two conspirators orbiting the same dystopian broadcast.
Heavily anchored in their 2026 album Normal Isn’t, the first stretch leans into dark, synth-heavy industrial propulsion, opening with “Thrust,” “Self Evident,” and “Bad Wolf” before weaving through “Normal Isn’t,” “The Algorithm,” and “The Quiet Parts”. Mitchell’s analogue synths and sharp guitar work give the newer tracks a sleek, paranoid edge, while Round’s powerhouse vocals cut right through the dense electronic mix.
Following a brief 10-minute intermission, the set opens up into career-spanning staples, including “Bullet Train to Iowa,” a brooding “The Humbling River,” and “Momma Sed”. The theatrical absurdity peaks during “Conditions of My Parole,” when Dave Hill makes a surprise cameo cycling across the stage in a disco-ball helmet spinning nunchucks, before the band brings the two-hour spectacle to a close with “Grand Canyon” and “A Public Stoning”.
Puscifer remains the clearest window into Maynard James Keenan’s unfiltered creative id. Where Tool is monolithic and A Perfect Circle is operatic, Puscifer in The Helix feels like an intimate, high-precision art-school cabaret colliding with industrial post-punk. By keeping phones in pockets and leaning fully into the bizarre, they delivered one of Dublin’s most immersive live experiences of the year.
Puscifer photos & set-list:
Set-list:
Thrust
Self Evident
Bad Wolf
Normal Isn’t
The Algorithm
The Quiet Parts
Pendulum
“Bangers and Mashups”-Video
Horizons
Mantastic
Bullet Train to Iowa
The Arsonist
The Remedy
________________________
The Humbling River
ImpetuoUs
Momma Sed-Versatile Mix
Seven One
Grand Canyon
Conditions of My Parole
A Public Stoning
Photos & Words – David McEneaney @experimentzero