REVIEW: Hermitage Green Live At The Brog with Bulmers Live

Our Bulmers Live reporter Anthony Kelly was at the gig for us!

An Brog has always been one of Cork’s best venues for alternative music, So it’s not surprising the Bulmers Live festival has descended on the Oliver Plunkett Street venue for its 4th installment. The music tonight comes in the form of one of Irelands most popular bands, Hermitage Green. The Limerick based 5 piece have gone from Strength to strength since their decision to go full time, back in 2013. The release of their first studio album ‘Save Your Soul’ back in March was in the band’s own words “About bloody time”, but in my opinion well worth the wait. Starting out as a folk outfit at jamming sessions in a Limerick City bar and evolving since to incorporate more pop and rock elements albeit while still using a lot of traditional folk instrumentation, Hermitage Green are building up quite a following.

Standing room is at a premium when the show starts and the die-hards have long since made their way to centre stage. The band open up with a quiet version of ‘Not Your Lover’ and ease into proceedings with some slower numbers, before stopping to introduce themselves to their adoring, Cork crowd.  The tempo increases soon after this with ‘Quicksand’, which was excellent. Other standout tracks were ‘Gibson’, ‘Make It Better’ and ‘Golden Rule’ but the clear crowd favourite was hit single ‘Jenny’. My own personal favourite was the mash up cover of The Fugees ‘Ready Or Not’ and Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ which singer/Bass player Barry had earlier, jokingly said they would play for me.  Also their rendition of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ was fantastic. After an encore was demanded of them, Hermitage Green thanked Bulmers Live for having them and brought an excellent evening’s entertainment to a close with ‘Save Your Soul’