October is a good month for live music in Belfast. Before the listings, two things that regularly go wrong.
Your Limelight ticket may not be at the Limelight
The Limelight promotes and sells tickets for shows at other venues. The Limelight complex is at 1 Ormeau Avenue, BT2 8HD. The Telegraph Building – a converted nineteenth-century warehouse that once housed the Belfast Telegraph’s printing press, holding around two thousand people – is at 124-144 Royal Avenue, BT1 1ND. Those are two different parts of town.
So The Hu on 5 October and The Reytons on 10 October are not on Ormeau Avenue, even though you may have bought them through the Limelight. Read the venue line on your ticket.
Several headline names are tribute acts
This is not hidden, but it is easy to miss when scanning a list quickly. Coldplace on 7 October is a Coldplay tribute. The Jam’d on 23 October is a Jam tribute. Fontaines C.D. and Arctic Monkeyz on 17 October are exactly what those spellings suggest. Hotter Than Hell and Motley Crude on 24 October likewise. QWEEN on 23 October plays with the Dublin Gospel Choir.
Tribute nights are often excellent and frequently better value than the real thing. But check before you buy for someone as a present.
Worth planning around
Monday 29 September, Limelight 1 – Holy Holy, with Woody Woodmansey and Tony Visconti. Bowie’s drummer from the Spiders from Mars and the producer of much of his best work, playing that material. Genuinely unusual.
Monday 29 September, Limelight 2 – Yonaka, with Snayx and Knifebride.
Tuesday 6 October – Fear Factory in Limelight 1, Buffalo Tom in Limelight 2. Two very different rooms, same building, same night.
Thursday 8 October, Limelight 1 – Cabaret Voltaire.
Saturday 10 October, Limelight 2 – Violet Grohl on the Be Sweet To Me tour.
The smaller rooms
The Oh Yeah Music Centre in the Cathedral Quarter is where to look for local and emerging acts: the Bridge City Sinners on 7 October, a screening of Sisters with Transistors on 8 October, Macdara Yeates launching Mudlark Ballads on 14 October, and Eyehategod on 16 November. There is a free acoustic picnic there on 3 October.
The Black Box has Midweek Magic Club on 14 October at £6.50 plus booking fee, and Queer Women Collective presents Bits and Boots on 24 October, from £15.
Checked and dated
All dates, rooms and times above were taken from the venues’ own listings on 23 September 2026. Line-ups change and shows sell out – several October dates were already gone when this was written. Confirm with the venue before making plans.