Live Music in Belfast

The Belfast live music scene

Belfast's live music is organised around a handful of rooms that publish their own calendars, which makes it the best-documented city on the island after Dublin. Rock is the dominant flavour by a wide margin, with country, electronic, folk and metal behind it. The thing to know before you go is that the free pub session culture that fills the calendar in Galway or Cork barely exists here: almost everything is ticketed, and the pubs that do have sessions rarely advertise them. Belfast is a city where you book.

The Ulster Hall on Bedford Street is the busiest venue and has the widest range, from Ulster Orchestra concerts that start from about £10 and film-score nights to touring rock and pop headliners of the Glen Hansard, Jack Savoretti and Ocean Colour Scene kind at £40 to £50. The Waterfront Hall at Lanyon Place is the other large seated room, carrying the heritage pop and classical end, Katherine Jenkins, Alison Moyet and David Essex are typical, with the Ulster Orchestra's Messiah and Christmas concerts in December at around £15. The SSE Arena in the Titanic Quarter takes the arena tours.

Ormeau Avenue is the rock street. The Limelight 1 and Limelight 2 share an address and between them run gigs most nights of the week, the main room taking the bigger standing shows and the smaller room the heavier and newer acts; Fat Dog, Avatar, Eagles of Death Metal, Swervedriver and Elephant Sessions have all come through. The same building runs the club residencies, UFO every Wednesday, Babba every Thursday and Limelight Saturdays, all at 10pm, so if you want a late night this is where the city's after-10pm music mostly lives. The Telegraph Building on Royal Avenue is the electronic room, with DJ-led nights on Saturdays.

South of the centre, Botanic Avenue has the Empire Music Hall, a converted church whose Saturday-night programme skews towards heritage and tribute acts, Teenage Fanclub, Chapterhouse and the trad band Beoga's December residency among them, with a recurring blues band slot that needs no ticket. Mandela Hall on University Road, in the Queen's students' union, mixes tribute nights with touring acts at student prices. Voodoo on Fountain Street and the Ulster Sports Club on High Street are the small rooms for new bands, generally with 7pm starts and modest prices.

The Cathedral Quarter is where the city's own music infrastructure sits. The Oh Yeah Music Centre on Gordon Street runs showcases, album launches and industry days most Thursday to Saturday evenings, and each November it hosts the Northern Ireland Music Prize and the Sound of Belfast programme, which is the week to visit if you want to hear new local bands. The Black Box on Hill Street has a short seasonal run. The Deer's Head, a brewery pub in the centre, is the exception to the no-sessions rule: a trad session every Friday at 5pm, the Belfast Ukulele Jam on Wednesdays at 7.30pm and a band at 2pm on Saturdays, with touring songwriters slotted around them, most of it unticketed. The Garrick runs a Friday-night band slot at 9.30pm, and the American Bar in Sailortown packs club-style nights into the weeks before Christmas.

Prices are quoted in a mixture of pounds and euro depending on the ticket seller, which is worth watching when you compare. Most tickets fall between £10 and £50, with the typical mid-sized show around £30 and the Ulster Orchestra and student-union nights at the cheap end. Fridays and Saturdays carry a little under half the gigs, so a midweek night at the Limelight or the Ulster Hall is a realistic option, and apart from the Ormeau Avenue club nights almost everything starts at 7pm or 8pm.

If you can choose your week, the second week of November is the one, when the Sound of Belfast programme, the Music Prize and the Budvar Music Trail run across the Cathedral Quarter bars while the Ulster Hall and the Limelight are at their autumn busiest. The summer, from June to August, is the other peak, with the Belsonic shows in Ormeau Park and the festival season. For a quieter introduction, the Empire's recurring blues slot and the Deer's Head's Saturday-afternoon bands are the closest Belfast comes to the drop-in pub gig, and neither needs a ticket.

Belfast venues worth knowing

A short, opinionated list of where to go in Belfast and why. Open any venue for its full upcoming calendar.

Traditional sessions in Belfast

Belfast does not advertise its pub sessions the way the southern cities do, so the one regular published trad fixture is the Deer's Head in the city centre, which runs a traditional session every Friday at 5pm, with the Belfast Ukulele Jam on Wednesday evenings at 7.30pm and a Saturday-afternoon band at 2pm alongside. Beoga's December residency at the Empire is the nearest thing to a trad concert run. The Cathedral Quarter bars around Hill Street and the pubs of the Falls Road have sessions on various nights, but you will need to ask.

Live music in Belfast: common questions