Airborne Toxic Event- Academy, Dublin

Airborne Toxic Event’s story would make for a cracking novel — and who better to write it than frontman, Mikel Jollett? A former Los Angeles Times reporter and editor, Jollett was writing his first book when two events altered his life. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, a potentially fatal immunity disorder (now in remission). Then, he broke up with his long-term girlfriend.

With the glittering future he had imagined in ruins, he turned down an opportunity to attend the storied Yaddo artist retreat, in upstate New York, and, instead, embraced the wilder discipline of rock’n’roll. Seven years later, he remains wedded to that life and, as his band took to the stage of a near-sold-out Academy, his commitment to loud, angry music is palpable.