Guest Post: Guyliner, Glitter, Flashmobs and French

A guest post for Culch.ie by Eoin Pluinceid

Last weekend saw the return of The Music Show to the RDS. Though the weekend event is often considered ‘an industry thing’, it’s a great opportunity to see live music, try out new instruments and see the professionals talk about what they do, no matter who you are.

Having been invited by The Brilliant Things, the highlight of the day for me was of course their set. Though it started half an hour later than billed due to technical difficulties, the band took to the stage with as much energy as I have ever seen them (or any other band, for that matter), display, blasting through their twenty minute set.

Since first coming across them opening the Oxegen Festival on the Main Stage with the Artane Band this summer, their music has really struck a chord. Their upbeat tunes are a perfect mix of sweet well-pitched vocals from Marie Jr. and just-so lyrics from Greg French.

Couple that with a bouncy, give-it-their-all stage presence and you’ve got a group worth taking notice of. If you’re not completely sold on the sound alone, be advised that these guys take performing seriously and put on the ritz – right down to Greg’s fetching mascara. Listen to them for yourselves on their Youtube channel, their Myspace, their own website, or grab one of their CDs. Any band who can pull off their own flashmob has got our vote…

Darragh caught up with Greg and Marie Jr. earlier this year and this time around, it was our pleasure to talk to the girls who made up the flashmob.

Dance Dimensions, a modern dance troupe based in Skerries, Co. Dublin, were responsible for what was one of the most effective flashmobs we’ve seen. The mob comprised 20 girls under the direction of Orla Hopkins.

Aged between 11-20, the girls broke into a choreographed routine just after Marie Jr. started singing, and kept going for the duration of the final song in the set, even drawing members of the public into the dance.

The routine itself had been planned the previous Tuesday and rehearsed for a total of 6 hours – not a huge amount of time to perfect it and yet the girls’ dedication shone through in how well they performed in front of literally hundreds of people.

It was the sort of routine which could well become synonymous with this wonderfully upbeat but pithy anthem, and end up being performed wherever ‘Rise’ – The Brilliant Things’ debut single – is played. Don’t believe us, check this out: