Wider Than Pictures kicks off the last weekend of summer on Friday 23rd August with revered Scottish sophisti-pop rockers Deacon Blue bringing their All The Old 45s – The Very Best of Deacon Blue Tour to The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks. The headliner follows two sold out shows by Deacon Blue at 3Olympia Theatre last October.
On Sat 24th August, multi-platinum UK singer-songwriter James Blunt brings his famously self-deprecating sense of humour and incredible back catalogue to the stage. Shortly after leaving the army in 2002, Blunt released the biggest-selling album of the decade in the UK: Back To Bedlam sold over 12m copies. He also released a further succession of hit albums, every one of them a Top Ten hit, and a brace of huge singles including ‘1973’, ‘Stay The Night’, ‘Bonfire Heart’ and ‘OK’. Blunt will be joined by special guest, Belfast multi-instrumentalist Gareth Dunlop. This show is sold out.
Sun 25th August sees THE THE bring their Ensouled world tour to Dublin in 2024, the band’s first since their hugely successful The Comeback Special world tour in 2018. Although Matt Johnson is the founder and only permanent member of THE THE, the group features a large, rolling cast of collaborators. This tour will bring together members from different eras of THE THE’s past. The band’s music inhabits a genre of its own: it is music of long shadows, high hopes, channelled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy. It is pop and rock, blues and folk, soul and polemic. It spans alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns. THE THE are joined by beloved Dublin band A Lazarus Soul, whose recently released new album No Flowers Grow in Cement Gardens has been receiving rave reviews.
DEACON BLUE
+ special guests Altered Images and WineMom
Fri, 23rd August 2024 | Tickets from €57.35 excl. booking fee
JAMES BLUNT
+ special guest Gareth Dunlop
Sat, 24th August 2024 | Sold Out
THE THE
+ special guests A Lazarus Soul
Sun, 25th August 2024 | Tickets from €65.70 excl. booking fee
With more than 25 million albums sold over their 42-year career, James are amongst the most successful alternative rock bands of their era with hits like ‘Laid’, ‘Sit Down’ and ‘Getting Away With It’ earning them cult status and an incredibly loyal fan following.The band plays Collins Barracks on Monday 25th August with special guests The Zutons joining them for a very special indie rock night of legendary proportions.
Proudly presented by Singular Artists and Mother, the headline act playing 2024’s Wider Than Pictures concert series is the incredible American indie dance rockers, Gossip, who are experiencing a phoenix-like revival at the moment. The trio, fronted by Beth Ditto, were one of a handful of bands who spearheaded the early 00s indie sleaze scene, with anthemic singles like ‘Standing in the Way of Control’, ‘Heavy Cross’ and ‘Move In The Right Direction’. 2024 album Real Power, the band’s first since 2012, finds Beth Ditto, Nathan Howdeshell and Hannah Blilie back together and reunited with super producer Rick Rubin, who helmed their 2009 opus Music For Men. The result is a comeback of magnum force. Gossip will be joined by New York shoegaze trio Nation of Language and “darkly defiant” (NME) Irish garage punks, Sprints.
JAMES
+ special guests The Zutons
Mon, 26th August 2024 | Tickets from €59.20 excl. booking fee
GOSSIP
+ special guests Nation of Language and Sprints
proudly presented by Singular Artists and Mother
Tue, 27th August 2024 | Tickets from €45.20 excl. booking fee
This is the third year running that Singular Artists has presented the Wider Than Picture series at one of the country’s most historical and accessible outdoor venues: the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks. The inaugural Wider Than Pictures series saw the venue play host to Alt-J, Simply Red, Fleet Foxes, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra performing the music of Thin Lizzy and more. Last year, First Aid Kit, YUNGBLUD, Future Islands, The Vamps, Mick Flannery and Franz Ferdinand headlined across six nights and were joined by an array of special guests.
Situated on the grounds of one of Dublin’s oldest buildings, the venue – The National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks – is a top tourist destination. Pair that with some of the top-rated live acts not only in Ireland, but in the world, and it’s clear to see how Ireland’s most exciting new summer event series perfectly embodies Singular Artists’ motto that music is bigger than words, and wider than pictures.
Photo credit: Ray Keogh