Live Review: DUG - 18 Dec. 2025

Review by Simon O'Connor

Photos by Kateryna Maksa

Scores of country-folk lovers flocked to Bank Lane on Thursday 18 December for an epic hootenanny with Grammy-nominated Irish/American band DUG, who concluded their Irish tour with a rousing stop in Waterford.

Opening up the proceedings was solo guitarist Nat Myers, a Kentuckian worthy of your attention. Introduced by DUG’s Conor O’Reilly, Nat greeted the audience and launched into a salvo of scratchy delta blues picking and sliding on a road-worn resonator with a pounding rhythm, reciting tunes both at once hazy and homely. Comfortable with the crowd and master of his domain, Nat kept "running and gunning" through his set. Thumping backbeats, his bassy, rough and resonant vocals and brittle finger picking conjured a complete tonal range that perfectly served each enjoyable tune. With entrancing rhythms and deft playing, each number invited the listener into its depths yet ended too soon. I loved what Nat was serving up: great musicianship and evocative, dialectic fluency, all the while keeping it raw. Mr Myers was greatly received by this Waterford audience, and will hopefully return to Ireland before too long. You can check out his music here.

Despite having mingled amongst their fans during Nat’s set, DUG were warmly received by the expectant crowd. Taking to the stage to the strains of the theme song of Nickelodeon’s Doug, lead singer Conor (Lorkin) O’Reilly grabbed his resonator guitar while Jonny Pickett equipped his banjo. Backed by two fiddlers Gareth Quinn Redmond and Conor McAuley, DUG quickly won over the eager crowd as they delivered their brand of rowdy country-folk distilled from the best of their respective cultures. The group’s fiddling and wild, wizardly hair brought to my mind Lindisfarne and, maybe more peculiarly, Jethro Tull.

Numerous times DUG reiterated their delight, gratitude and astonishment at the turnout for their show. DUG’s previous visit to Bank Lane was a fully-seated gig, which I can imagine restricted the excitement for the audience somewhat. This time around the floor was filled and there was plenty of banter between the performers, along with an unprecedented amount of crowd participation, including line dancing and encouragement to mosh.

Throughout the show they demonstrated a number of new songs as well as their hits, sharing anecdotes from their touring and recording experiences. In my own humble opinion, their repertoire sounded better live than the recorded versions found on their album Have At It!; perhaps the crowd’s excitement or the liveness of the room provided the missing ingredient, or they were warmed up from their tour. Nonetheless, I was sensitive to an underlying tension between the festive atmosphere of the occasion and the fatalism of the songs' lyrics. Regardless, the band exuded a fantastic energy throughout their set, matched by the audience, and the performance ended on a high without an encore.

I was personally a bit disappointed that they didn’t play their track ‘Fields of Plenty’, despite having brought their harmonium, a key ingredient to some of the slower songs on their debut album. With crowd pleasers seeming to end too soon, my only wish was the songs would've been extended by an additional chorus or with instrumental solos by the capable fiddlers. Because the crowd were willing, and absolutely able, to dance til the morning came!

There’s no rest for the wicked and DUG will resume touring swiftly after Christmas, appearing in the United States and Europe. With any luck they will continue to go from strength to strength and return to Bank Lane soon!