Running for an 11th consecutive year, Hard Working Class Heroes Festival (HWCH) took over Dublin City last weekend, bringing some of Ireland’s most exciting music and tech together for three days of gigs, talks, and workshops.
The festival, featuring 104 Irish acts, chose the Liberties as the headquarters for its industry-based convention.
Friday saw the beginning of the convention, based in the NDRC on Crane Street, in Dublin 8.
Filmmaker Brendan Canty, best known for directing Hozier’s music video for ‘Take Me To Church’, hosted a talk about his music videos on Friday afternoon.
When asked about the choice of the NDRC as the main hub of proceedings, he thought “the NDRC is a great location for the convention. It’s close enough to the city and all the rooms have a great, relaxed vibe for talks.”
The refurbished stone building played host to over 20 talks, workshops, and panels, with artists also performing acoustic sets around the venue.
Musical highlights from Thursday night included Liza Flume, whose reflective and heartfelt delivery brought outdoor venue Meeting House Square to a standstill.
Dublin trio, Dear Desert, were also a great watch, bringing a throwback of powerful, downtempo 80s pop to the festival.
On Friday night, grunge/pop four-piece Otherkin took to the stage of a packed Mercantile, living up to their reputation as a fantastically exciting live band.
Cork band Elastic Sleep kept the standard high, with a loud and consistent set.
Saturday featured an explosive show by the ever-experimental Meltybrains?, along with an incredibly crowd pleasing performance by hip-hop trio Hare Squead.
Hard Working Class Heroes Festival is organised by First Music Contact, an information advice resource for musicians.
In a situation in which a lack of energy and mainstream support for Irish music is proposed, HWCH proved the opposite to be the case.
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