A free music exhibition, an all-ages gig room and a summer school for teenage bands, all in one Cathedral Quarter building.
Oh Yeah Music Centre — A free music exhibition, an all-ages gig room and a summer school for teenage bands, all in one Cathedral Quarter building.
Four things, and you can do the lot in half an hour or stretch it to two. Storyboards run the whole arc of Northern Irish music, from folk right through to Snow Patrol. Audio-visual displays cover Them, The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and Gary Moore. A Legends series honours the people who moved the scene forward. And the cabinets hold the real stuff: the Fender guitar Gary Lightbody used to write Run and Chasing Cars, a vintage Cyprus Avenue street sign, and Gary Moore artefacts donated by his family. Kids who have never heard a note of it still like the guitars.
The gig calendar runs year-round and pulls in festival weeks, with Fleadh dates in early August and the Sound of Belfast festival later in the year. All-ages lineups appear regularly alongside the standard evening bills.
Oh Yeah Music Centre is at 15-21 Gordon Street, Belfast BT1 2LG. city-centre street and multi-storey parking nearby in the Cathedral Quarter, none at the building. Tap below for directions.
Oh Yeah is a registered charity, number 100904, set up to give Northern Irish music somewhere to live and grow. The building holds rehearsal rooms, recording facilities, resident artists and talent development programmes alongside the public exhibition.
That mix is the point. The history in the cabinets and the band sweating through a rehearsal on the same floor are the same story at different stages. You get to walk through both for free.