Villagers
**Please note Doors open 8pm! Stage-Time 9pm**
Growing up in Dun Laoghaire, a south-east seaside Dublin suburb, O’Brien wrote his first song, aged just 12, a week after his older brother lent Conor his acoustic guitar. After choosing the name Villagers – “I like the name because it doesn’t offend the songs” – O’Brien released The Hollow Kind EP in February 2009 and the 7” ‘On a Sunlit Stage’ last October on the Any Other City label, run by Villagers drummer James Byrne. After signing to Domino, Becoming a Jackal was recorded in Villagers guitarist Tommy McLaughlin’s home studio, with Tommy engineering and co-producing alongside Conor.
Young in face but intense around the eyes, O’Brien will probably never run out of insights and incidents, so you can be sure that Villagers will be around for the long term. Which suits him just fine. “I don’t want this ever to be the finished product, but to be constantly changing, moving and growing. I can hear so much more.”