Backstage at the Choice Music Prize in 2023, Just Mustard stood a hair’s breadth from Sinéad O’Connor, their musical idol. The Dundalk band were delighted to be in the vicinity of an icon but unsure what to do.
“I wanted to go and say hello, because obviously I love her music and everything she stands for,” says Dave Noonan, the band’s guitarist. “But I always have this feeling, whenever I see someone like that, that I’m going to leave them be. I don’t regret not saying hello. But I do wish I did.”
To be in the orbit of Sinéad O’Connor yet wary of intruding on her personal space is a dilemma typical of these indie dark horses. Just Mustard are card-carrying songwriting introverts, softly spoken, not big on eye contact and with tunes that arrive bathed in a fuzzy glow of understatement.
But, as is often true of quiet people with a lot going on under the surface, when they get properly worked up, the forces unleashed are breathtaking – and more than a little unsettling.
That was the case when they supported the goth godfathers The Cure at Malahide Castle in the pre-pandemic bliss of summer 2019 and blew away the mid-afternoon audience who had arrived early at the bucolic Co Dublin venue.
This ability to bring both intimacy and volume is also a feature of their ex
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