Dylan John Thomas Has Just Announced a Headline Academy, Dublin Show
By Dylan John Thomas
UK/IRE TOUR 2026
Plus Special Guests
Sunday, 29th November 2026
The Academy, Dublin
Doors 7pm Tickets on sale Friday @ 9am
Dylan John Thomas has just announced a headline Academy, Dublin show for Sunday, 29th November 2026 as part of his UK/IRE Tour 2026.
Tickets €26.90 (Inc Booking Fee & Venue Facility Fee from Ticketmaster.Ie
Bookings Subject To 12.5% Service Charge Per Ticket (Max €10.50)
Forty million streams and 60,000 tickets can’t be wrong. The numbers don’t lie, and nor do the tunes – impassioned songs of love and regret, faith and fatalism, rejection and connection, realism and idealism. After selling out six nights at the Barrowlands, Dylan John Thomas is Scotland’s worst kept musical secret. From pavement to arena, the DIY artist who did it all for himself, all the way to a sell-out homecoming show at Glasgow’s 14,300-capacity Ovo Hydro. A self-taught, multi-instrumentalist, mainlining the old-time rhythm of Johnny Cash (“boom-chicka-boom…”), the high-picking melodies of Simon & Garfunkel, the lyrical poeticism of Leonard Cohen – but all retooled with a twentysomething’s freshness, rigour and vigour, and the ardent fandom to match. Boom-chicka-BOOM.
His second album, Nothing Here Worth Taking, was recorded at Magic Box studios over the past year with Scotty Anderson (The Snuts). Entirely written by Dylan, with most of the instruments self-played too, the 10-track set is a rousing, carousing blast of brass, blues, banjo, piano and classic, retro-futureproof, singalong songwriting. That spirit is there in vivid form on lead single ‘Got You on My Mind’. The first song completed for the album, it’s a banjo-and brass-driven anthem. “I got into banjo two years ago, just after the first album came out,” Dylan explains. “We went on a wee trip round Scotland, and I took it with us. We were just kicking around, playing all the old folk songs. And by the time it came to recording this album, I’d written a couple of songs on it.”
“It gives a different type of sound to the guitar. It’s still sticking within that bluegrass feel, I suppose, with the rolling fingerpicking. But I wanted to see if we could fit it into the new tunes.”
The thrilling blast of brass is also there in the title track, a song of encouragement and support for a mate whose relationship was breaking down. That brass sound, he explains, calls back to the ska he loved as a kid. ‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’ and ‘Got You on My Mind’ represent the overall palette of the album: “It’s an amalgamation of all different kind of influences pulled together to create the sound. Which seems to kick off live all around the country.” That music was first showcased in 2024’s self-titled debut album. Rousing and impassioned, it’s a record that distilled everything Dylan had learned growing up as a kid in foster care and finding his way. Mentored by Gerry Cinnamon and hand-picked for arena-scale supports slots by Liam Gallagher, Sam Fender and Stereophonics, his is a story of letting his music do the talking, the fans do the shouting and the music industry playing catch-up.
That word-of-mouth enthusiasm was built by Dylan and the band-of-brother mates who play with him over years of grassroots gigging. Like Cinnamon, the Scottish “unknown” who sold out the country’s national football stadium Hampden (twice), behind a microphone is where Dylan is at his most eloquent. “Aye, it’s been a bit mad,” he acknowledges with a wry grin of his fans know-all-the-words fervour. “To headline at arena level off the back of first album was mental.”
Dylan John Thomas UK/Ire Tour 2026
Thu Nov 26 MANCHESTER, Albert Hall
Sun Nov 29 DUBLIN, Academy
Tue Dec 01 BELFAST, Limelight
Wed Dec 02 CORK, Cyprus Avenue
Fri Dec 04 NEWCASTLE, NX
Sat Dec 05 LIVERPOOL, Olympia
Sun Dec 06 CARDIFF, Tramshed
Tue Dec 08 LONDON, Islington Assembly Hall
Fri Dec 11 GLASGOW, Ovo Hydro
Sat Dec 12 ABERDEEN, P&J Live