Up and coming Irish alt rock band Bleech 9:3 played their largest hometown headline show yet in Whelans on the first of May. They have also announced an even larger headline show for Dublin’s The Academy later this year.
A band with a lot of hype around them, a name that I kept hearing off alot of my friends, my tickets to them were bought more out of convenience than anything, I wanted to bring a friend to a concert and I had a limited time frame and this was the best I could find. Soon after I got them they had fully sold out after supporting Keo in The Academy.
I was incredibly lucky to be able to get tickets to this, because once people started hearing about them, tickets started flying out, with one of my friends looking for a ticket in the early hours of the morning after their support slot, with none to be found.
One of the most energetic and raw live bands I’ve seen in a while, Bleech 9:3 deliver a brand new sound and feel to what has felt like a worn out genre for the last couple of months. Their live sound is crisp and heavy, with an absolute insane amount of mosh pits going on, which I of course joined for the duration of the show.
I also ended up crowd surfing at one point, and I lost my inhaler during moshing at the first song, but thankfully I didn’t need it throughout the show, which was surprising giving the amount of physical exertion involved in that moshing.
Stage Setup: 6/10, Hard to rate it highly because it is an incredibly small stage with no room really for customisation, but I also can’t hold that against the band.
Band Performance: 10/10, This band is in their absolute prime, and I’m hoping it gets better, but it’ll be very hard to top what was a rip roaring passionate and loud, loud, loud set.
Support: 8/10, Another band of the genre, Black Nylon, were the support, once again, in a genre that has been overdone as of late, they bring in their own unique spin to it, at one point making me feel like they had fused Nirvana and David Bowie in one of their songs.
Merchandise: 5/10, Black and White logo t shirts, posters and pins, at a pretty standard price, nothing that was particularly nicely designed, and nothing I would pick up.
Crowd: 10/10, An absolutely stellar crowd, with more energy than I thought humanly possible, from the first song until the last there was non stop moshing, jumping and crowdsurfing, all of which I was more than happy to join.
Overall: 8/10, Bleech 9:3 are making a name for themselves and carving out a nice little spot in the new wave of Irish alt bands, like Wunderhorse and Keo (Who are British-Irish, but close enough), with their own blending of soft echoing guitar riffs, and heavy choruses that pack one hell of a punch.
Next up: Richard Ashcroft 16/5/26
Jays Concert Blog 