Mercury Rev

On 18 July 2026 at Cyprus Avenue, Caroline Street, Cork, Mercury Rev revisit the shape-shifting pop they’ve built since the late 1980s. Formed in Buffalo around singer Jonathan Donahue and guitarist Grasshopper, the band first pushed into abrasive noise rock before steering toward a psychedelic, orchestral writing style. Donahue’s high register, woven with strings, brass and vaporous textures, gives their songs a dream-pop and almost film-score feel.

On stage, the group likes to redraw its catalogue. Early pieces from Yerself Is Steam and Boces can surface beside the more melodic turns of See You on the Other Side, then the orchestrated ballads that marked Deserter’s Songs and All Is Dream. Later chapters like The Secret Migration, Snowflake Midnight and The Light in You, as well as their take on Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete, broaden the palette. Longtime collaborator and producer David Fridmann has helped shape that detailed sound, and live the songs often shift in arrangement and dynamics, moving from hushed passages to thicker swells without losing the band’s quiet, cinematic pull.