Live: Aiko in Dublin 2024
The last concert of 2024 was the Czech singer Aiko. She also visited Dublin with her Aikonic tour and I was able to shake it one last time!
I discovered Aiko thanks to Eurovision, where she represented us this year with the song Pedestal. She missed the final by 1 point. However, I liked the song and the singer later released another album, Aikonic, which also caught my attention. Shortly after that, she announced a tour of Europe, and at that time Dublin was not on the list.
She added Dublin later, at the request of fans on social networks. The concert took place at The Academy 2 (the basement of the building) on November 17th, and the opening act was the Irish Pastiche. Each part of the tour had different opening acts and I was sorry that we didn’t get Teya (she and Salena represented Austria with the song Who the hell is Edgar? and I really enjoy Teya’s music). But Pastiche ended up being really good and I also enjoyed her music.
I arrived at the club about 30 minutes before opening. I was afraid that there would be a lot of people there and I wanted to be close to the stage to see something, because the stage is quite low there. There was no one there. And I really didn’t expect that. After a few minutes, a guy came over and said he was also going to Aiko, so we started talking about Eurovision and stuff. When they started letting people into the club, there were four of us.
Before I comment on what Aiko was like, I would like to point out a few things. This is my second time in this part of the venue. Normally I have concerts in the main part, where I was at Bambie this year. In this basement (it’s really at the very bottom and the venue itself calls it the basement) I was at Tove Styrke last year, where there were about 30 people. And this year at Aiko. Where there were maybe 20 people. And I was very sorry. I was expecting the Czechoslovak community to come to support the Czech singer. On Sunday. Sorry, what else is there to do on Sunday. At least the locals in Dublin could come, the concert ended a little after ten anyway. As if we weren’t staring at our mobile phones late into the night. Instead, people could come to the concert. And that applies to the Eurovision community too. Ireland loves Eurovision. From what I’ve seen so far at other concerts by artists from the ESC, a lot of people came. Not to Aiko and she’s really great live and can sing. This island really has no taste.
Okay, rant over so let’s talk about the concert itself.
C. and I were standing in the middle of the front row. Next to me during the opening act was the Pastiche family. Grandma and probably mom too. That’s so typical of the Irish. But it was very sweet and Pastiche was really good. But during her set, I realized that I had a crazy headache, so I took Ibuprofen and hoped that it would pass by the time Aiko showed up.
Aiko played in the UK before Dublin and had some problems during the transfer, so in the end, instead of the whole band and stage lighting, we got Aiko on vocals and her drummer Kat (from Megara, they represented San Marino in Eurovision) on drums, which Pastiche’s drummer had lent her. And that was it. So the concert was all the more intimate and Aiko really gave it her all. Despite the small number of participants, the energy was great and I really enjoyed it. And my headache stopped hurting because I was really partying like when I was young – jumping and singing like there’s no tomorrow.
After the concert, a woman came up to us, I think she worked at the club, and gave us the Pastiche and Aiko setlist. I left them both with C. so he could have some memories. It was really cool, I literally haven’t had this happen to me in years, so I went back about 10 years for a moment.
C. informed me that Aiko sometimes goes out to people after concerts to take pictures and stuff, but this time she didn’t come out, which was a shame. I still enjoyed the concert a lot and I’m glad it was my last concert this year. I couldn’t have ended the 2024 season better. And I really recommend Aiko, she does great English pop and rock and her music has a real edge. I just really think she deserves better.
