This issue we’ve moved the Digitalgig Scenes spotlight on to Belfast:  a great city on the rise with a fantastic music scene. 

Traditionally a centre for shipbuilding, rope making, linen and tobacco, after much recent redevelopment in recent years Belfast has become a thriving retail city with a strong cultural heart.  As part of the cultural renaissance several large venues were built such as The Odyssey Area and the Waterfront Hall as well as the redevelopment of the Cathedral Quarter.

The city boasts several fantastic cultural events including the Belfast Festival, the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and The Out to Lunch Arts Festival.

Belfast has always had a strong musical heritage with legends like Van Morrison, Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy) and Stiff Little Fingers coming from the city as does flautist extraordinaire James Galway.

In more recent times Belfast has also produced some notable acts.  Snow Patrol’s Mark McClelland hails from the

city and the band’s Gary Lightbody is from nearby Bangor.  Other acts from the city that have made a breakthrough in recent years are Oppenheimer, Duke Special and The Answer.

One of the great aspects of the Belfast music scene is the level of support that exists there.  Belfast is one of the cities that is part of the Urban Collective project which aims to encourage musicianship among young people. 

Another project with similar aims is the Oh Yeah Belfast Music Centre which was set up to help musicians kick-start their careers and is supported by Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol), Tim Wheeler (Ash) and Colin Murray (Radio One) among others.

Other fantastic resources that give huge support to the music scene of the city and also to the wider Northern Irish community are: NI Music (http://nimusic.com) – a support agency set up to help create a sustainable music industry in Northern Ireland, the fabulous Alternative Ulster Magazine (http://iheartau.com) and the equally great music forum Fastfude (http://fastfude.org).

As well as the new larger venues mentioned earlier and the older Empire Music Hall and Ulster Hall, Belfast has a large number of smaller venues that are helping nurture the city’s vibrant music scene.  The names of Auntie Annies, Limelight, Lavery’s Bunker and Spring & Airbrake have been mentioned to us time and again as great place for bands to play.

This is assisted by the great work done by the city’s promoters such as Defiance Belfast, Flipside Promotions and Bruised Fruit who all helped in the research for this article. 

Belfast has an awesome rock and metal scene with an unbelievable level of technicality and sonic brutality.  There is also a very strong indie scene with great bands delivering great songs.  Although less in number of acts the quality of the acoustic / folk, electro and rap artists remains the same.
In fact the standard of music and musicianship across all genres is very high indeed.

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