07/04/2025
This Thursday!
My first encounter with the mighty Graham Hopkins dates all the way back to 1993, courtesy of a well-thumbed issue of Kerrang! Imagine my surprise reading that a guy from Clane, literally down the road to where I grew up, had landed the drum throne for major label hopefuls My Little Funhouse. Fast forward a few years, that same ‘local’ lad was now keeping time for none other than Therapy?, Northern Ireland’s finest purveyors of noise and angst.
I was lucky enough to catch him behind the kit twice with Therapy? during the late ’90s, both times in the dimly lit hall of Aberystwyth Student Union, where I was pretending to study. The man really could hit hard.
Then came 2002, I rocked up to the Sugar Club in Dublin to see Wilt do an acoustic set. Who should casually stroll out with an acoustic guitar to support them but Therapy?’s former rhythmic powerhouse. Turns out, this was my first taste of Halite, a band that would go on to release two cracking albums and become something of a live obsession of mine. I caught them at least ten times, one of which involved me blagging my way onto the guestlist at Whelans!
Since then, Graham has been everywhere—from drumming in Boss Volenti to a dizzying list of session gigs with some seriously heavy hitters. In fact, we had to move our event date from 17th to 10th April just so Graham could hop on a plane to work with none other than Glenn Hansard. That’s the level we’re talking here.
So, if you fancy an evening of drums, stories and awesome coffee, come join us on Thursday evening, April 10th. A few tickets are still up for grabs on Eventbrite. Link’s in the bio. Don’t sleep on this one.
See you up front,
Ax
Photo courtesy of soundbetter.com
