Clash at the Quays! II: Lokomania
The Complex, Dublin 7
★★★★★
Clash at the Quays! is what happens when you drop a wrestling ring into an underground hip-hop gig and let the chaos run. Musicians, drag queens, wrestlers and dancers keep the night moving so fast there’s barely time to clock the madness before the next twist arrives.
The wrestling side is no gimmick. Suplexes land hard, insults fly, luchadors and drag queens storm the ring with glamour and aggression. Dancers slip in and out, and at one point a heavily pregnant woman in leather and fishnets wrestles to roaring approval. I imagine she’s using prosthetics – but, then again, it could be real. Cans of Four Loko sail through the air, the crowd jeer and cheer, and the performers lean into every interruption, turning glitches into fuel.
[ Clash at the Quays! I review: Rowdy night of hip-hop and wrestlingOpens in new window ]
Ahmed, With Love hosts a good range of Ireland’s avant-garde musicians: Sloucho, VaticanJail, Julia Louise Knifefist, Lil Skag, Curtisy and Kibo. Julia Louise Knifefist delivers the evening’s best curveball, breaking up his hard-core set with Video Games by Lana Del Rey. Instantly, lighters are out, the crowd swaying in what feels like a collective in-joke turned unexpectedly tender. The ring morphs into a DJ booth as Sloucho drops a trippy, disorienting set where past versions of himself stalk him.
The atmosphere is sweaty, rowdy, sexy and mischievous: the kind of collective energy you hope to find in underground shows but rarely do. It’s messy but never sloppy, silly yet precisely timed.
READ MORE
By the end the venue feels wrung out: heat, noise, smoke, bodies and a sense that something unrepeatable has just happened. One guy, staggering out, turns to me and says, “It’s opera!” Clash at the Quays! might market itself as dumb fun, but it proves again that the smartest live events don’t sit neatly in one category. They sprawl, brawl and refuse to behave.
Clash at the Quays! II: Lokomania was at the Complex as part of Dublin Fringe Festival
