Call it an Irish hello: A wide range of talent from the Emerald Isle will take center stage at Lollapalooza on the first day of the festival with five rising acts in the spotlight.
“There really is a wave of new Irish music coming through, but I think it’s seen across the board, even beyond music,” said Robbie Cunningham, singer/guitarist of the Dublin folk trio Amble, who play at 5:15 p.m. on the Airbnb Stage, breaking out in 2025 with the album “Reverie.” According to the band’s label, Warner Records, it was the biggest Irish album release since 2018.
“I think there’s a real moment in Ireland right now,” he said, referencing A-list actors like Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal and Cillian Murphy, in addition to music bigwigs like Hozier and Fontaines D.C. “And I think it just takes one band or one person to go and do it for other people to follow [who] think, ‘I could do that, too.’ ”
Cunningham’s theory zeroes in on a phenomenon the Los Angeles Times has likened to a “Green Wave” and The Week has described as an insatiable hunger for Irish traditional music as of late, especially among younger listeners, even comparing the interest to modern-day Beatlemania. According to the Irish Recorded Music Association, the market share for Irish music has tripled since 2024, reaching 21.5% of the top 100 sales in 2025, driven by big releases from Hozier (a Lolla alum) as well as Amble, CMAT and Kingfishr (the latter two are also on the festival bill this year).
“When you look at someone like Hozier, he has had this crazy moment in the last five years, and he’s now bigger than anyone ever expected. And I find it interesting he’s taking other Irish bands on his tour with him in the United States. Does that correlate? I think it does,” said Avery Liardon, global festival talent buyer for Lollapalooza organizers C3 Presents. Notably, Amble opened several Hozier dates in America in 2025, including Fenway Park. Liardon also points to another relevant example of this sensation: when Chappell Roan, relatively unknown at the time, opened for Olivia Rodrigo a few months before playing in front of one of the biggest crowds ever recorded at Lollapalooza in 2024. “I think that might be the same Hozier/Amble effect of it all,” said Liardon. “Everything is one degree away from everything else.”
While the talent booker notes she and her team weren’t “consciously thinking about” booking Irish bands for the 2026 edition of the festival, you can’t deny the team is thinking more internationally in recent years. Coupled with the fact that Lollapalooza now has six other international editions (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paris, India and Berlin), the festival has also seen wild success with the K-pop market and has the first Filipino band, SB19, taking the stage in Chicago this year.
Plus, as Liardon explains, there is a domino effect that affects the way acts are chosen for Lolla — a complicated web of working with agents, managers and other partners who have “thousands of bands to pitch” while they eye ongoing trends. As the profile of Irish bands continue to rise (Amble has the same team as Hozier), they become more covetable.
“When Amble comes over, they sell out all the rooms all over the U.S.,” she said. “So, we’re not just booking because we’re doing any favors … there’s a real business here with a band like that.”
It’s an effect Amble taps into on its new single “The Swell,” which will be featured on an upcoming record in 2027 (expect some new material during their Lolla set). “It’s a song about us evolving and growing within the band, where you go from playing 300- to 400-cap rooms to then literally for 30,000 or 40,000 people. It’s an insane experience for the body and the mind,” said Amble instrumentalist/vocalist Oisín McCaffrey. He wrote the song and is looking forward to performing it in Chicago where many of his family live and will be in the crowd.
Remarkably, Amble only fully got together in 2024 with modest pub gigs; the band’s first show in Chicago was that fall at Schubas. At the time, McCaffrey worked as a data scientist for Pfizer and Cunningham and fellow bandmate Ross McNerney were teachers. All three have since quit their day jobs. “We all love playing the shows and we owe it to the crowd every night to give the best of ourselves,” he said. “That’s the message of ‘The Swell.’ It’s like a pinch me song, when you realize you are doing the coolest thing you could ever possibly do in your life.”
As Amble has found, young people in particular have been flocking to the band’s music, as recently seen at other fests like Bonnaroo. “I think it’s the authenticity that we’re channeling out to the world,” McCaffrey said, speculating what’s behind the youth explosion for Irish music. “Every time people come to the shows, it’s just so real and there’s nothing programmed. The gigs are such a huge singalong that it feels like a very communal experience, and I think people leave the shows feeling like they know each other in a way, too. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Here’s a look at the other Irish bands playing Lollapalooza, all on Thursday:
Kingfishr: Irish trad music gets a modern eye with this Limerick trio who broke out with the 2025 album “Halcyon” (1:45 p.m., Tito’s Stage).
Chalk: Gritty post-punk-meets-industrial act out of Belfast who’d fit well on a lineup with Nine Inch Nails (5:40 p.m., BMI Stage).
CMAT: Poised to be one of the most colorful acts of the weekend, the Dubliner blends retro country, modern pop and a wild sense of humor (6:30 p.m., Airbnb Stage).
Kettama: The Galway DJ and producer brings big energy with his blend of techno, house and trance music (7 p.m., Perry’s Stage).