Blindboy podcast live tour hits Leeside

Podcaster and performance artist Blindboy Boatclub held court last night at Cork's Crane Lane Theatre, with a special guest in former radio DJ and fellow podcast host Louise McSharry.

A relatively intimate venue for the Limerick man's live podcast outings, the Crane Lane hosted the gig as part of a series of live events for newly-launched Island's Edge stout, and filled up early as Blindboy opened the show with a reading of 'Rí na Corcaigh' - a piece of surrealist fiction from his first book about two troubled youths' foiled plans to skin Rory Gallagher and wear his pelt on the stage of the Opera House.

McSharry took to stage and nearly immediately the conversation turned to podcasting, as the pair veered between comparing their media experiences and discussing a range of issues, from Irish radio's reluctance to support homegrown artists, to the nature of McSharry's departure from RTÉ.

The pair, each experienced content creators in the realms of television and radio, identified the issues with broadcast radio, from unrelatable "radio voices" to the algorithms taking further control of music playlisting, but also explored the freedom that the podcasting format brings, from McSharry's freedom from broadcast restrictions, to Blindboy's stated glee at escaping the nature of advertiser-driven media and being able to pursue his own interests and passions.

The affair also wasn't without Blindboy's trademark surrealism throughout, though, as the discussion was peppered with questions from fans submitted online, but also hypotheticals of his own creation, from the topic of if McSharry had ever seen a ghost, to the history and ethics behind the breeding of bulldogs and pugs.

And if that all sounds like a mixture of the realistic and the preposterous, you might just be ready to pull up your favourite podcast app and familiarise yourself with the ever-deepening lore of the Blindboy Podcast.