Kraftwerk, LCD Soundsystem, Radiohead, Neu, Modest Mouse, Flaming Lips, Portishead

Trinity News (live review) – “Happily brimming with talent and seemingly oblivious to their comparatively mundane surroundings, all four are refreshingly unselfconscious onstage and clearly revel in a gig opportunity … Perhaps if we put Stellastarr in the fridge for a couple of hours, or gave the Cardigans a soul, we would end up with Alphastates. But then again, to reduce this band’s sound to a merely digestible indie-pop stereotype is to cheapen and gravely underestimate one of the most potent undercurrents in the country’s alternative music scene. I look around and their audiences are transfixed. Tonight, the Buttery was plucked from the armpit of stale indie bedwet and propelled skywards toward the lofty creative peaks of a band who I am convinced are poised to record something truly special.”

Across The Line (live review) – “’Made From Sand’ is probably one of the most ambitious records to come out of Ireland in a while and here in the Limelight they sound absolutely huge. Alphastates managed to turn in one of the best belFEST performances in recent memory.”

Kilkenny People (live review) – “This band will manage to reassure you that there’s still urgency, passion, and art left in music.”

Hot Press (live review) – “In Catherine Dowling they have a singer born to live on stage, her WW11 vamp-waitress persona and honeydripping voice pulling them in from the bar from the off. All told, a night that scored an appropriate ten out of Ten.”