WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2025

An Evening With Tia Bow & Clare Galway
Tia Bow. Photo: Jonah Gardner & Sound Of Belfast Festival

As we prepare for the final event of this year's Oh Yeah Music Centre Sound Of Belfast Festival in Belfast's Sunflower, it occurs to me that one of the performers, Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot, married a Frenchman, carries a guitar and sings! A tiny bit like a certain Lisa Kudrow, if you choose to blend the actress's real-life marriage with elements of her Friend-ly alter ego. And sure enough, we're set for a pleasant Buffay, sorry, buffet - and I will stop there - of thoughtful and relaxing music in the pleasant company of creative performers. 

First on stage is Clare Galway, whose music promises a combination of Celtic connections with Filipino heritage, Irish trad with heart and soul. Keys and strings are tied into gently spellbinding vocal fluctuations for an encapsulation of affecting desire and reflective regret, a calmly entrancing, cathartic release which strengthens and varies as the tone of Galway's tunes takes a turn into the cheery, the familial and the pointed. It's a mixture of the versatile and the unexpected on a bed of familiar elements, with the highlights, for me, being an improvised rendition of brand a new song featuring lyrics read from a phone and MacGyver-like inventiveness with a violin, along with an extremely upbeat and hugely likable take on "An Irish Blessing", right at the end of her set. Her liveliness and novelty is unprecedented and delectable, her professionalism exemplary, her presence highly memorable.

Clare Galway. Photo: Jonah Gardner & Sound Of Belfast Festival

It's a tough act for Fagan-Thiébot, the artist also known as Tia Bow - that's how you pronounce her married name - to follow, but follow it she does, with an equally relaxed style, commendable depth of sound, and layered lyrical storytelling. We are treated, with accompaniment from Galway and multi-instrumentalist Danny Troutan, to a full live performance of Fagan-Thiébot's forthcoming album Blackberry Path, a Folktronica work which relays various tales of different moments in Fagan-Thiébot's life featuring "very special people".

Without saying too much about the songs on the album – because I would like them to be as much of a surprise for you as they are here, for me – I am positively reminded, in some ways, of the experimentation that drove Wet Wet Wet's arresting debut album Popped In Souled Out along with the exquisite beauty of perhaps my favourite album, The Divine Comedy's Promenade. One does recall how inspired Neil Hannon seemed in conceptually crafting a musical narrative about a couple by the sea, and Fagan-Thiébot appears equally inspired in uncovering inclusive, diverse and open truths in her tuneage, all while being an highly engaging performer. 

Her lyrics are sharp and observant, her music is brave and stirring, and the overall effect is at times spectacular. In particular, the beautiful harmony in the album's title track simply shines, one of many seemingly disparate elements that find a way to majestically cohere and elevate the spirit of the entire bar. It's frankly exciting, and as good a way to end the evening as we can hope for.

Innovative, articulate and heartfelt, Fagan-Thiébot and her music accomplish so much in such a short space of time, in an intimate environment which enhances clarity of and confidence for expression. She and Galway are the kind of musicians who bring not only tears of joy but loud applause, their eclectic, experimental and effervescent compositions celebrating music's power to heal, unify and encourage.

Simon Fallaha

An Evening With Tia Bow & Clare Galway took place at the Sunflower, Belfast, on Sunday November 16 as part of the Oh Yeah Music Centre's Sound Of Belfast Festival.