Following the announcement that Sinead O'Connor is set to headline Live at Botanic Gardens this summer, Belfast Live caught up with Northern Irish artist SOAK, who will be the special guest at the gig.
This year marked the return of Sinead O'Connor to the live stage down south, while June will mark her Belfast return.
She'll be supported on the night by local artist SOAK (real name Bridie Monds-Watson) who won the Northern Irish Music Prize in 2015 for her debut album, Before We Forgot How To Dream.
Speaking to Belfast Live SOAK said: "It’s so cool to be able to do this. Sinead’s obviously such an icon and she’s always been a hero of mine personally.
"When we were asked to do it I immediately agreed. I'm actually excited just to be playing the show and then have that opportunity of being able to watch Sinead O’Connor perform right after."
2019 has been a busy year for SOAK. In the last 12 months she's performed everywhere from Singapore to the USA, and she reached a wider audience when she supported American folk-rock band The Lumineers for their UK & Ireland arena tour.
But she notes that her personal highlight of the year was releasing her second album, Grim Town, back in April.
"The album had been a couple of years coming and to finally put it out there was such a relief," she says. " I’ve been delighted by the response. It was really nice to be welcomed back with open arms by all the fans."
SOAK now lives in Brighton, but she's still heavily involved in the Northern Irish music scene, and says that another highlight of the year was getting involved with Girls Rock Northern Ireland, which aims to get young women and girls involved in making music.
"It was incredible getting to do that and help all those kids get motivated into making music, especially when there isn’t always a huge focus on getting young girls into music."
The artist also says that the response to her second album was so encouraging that she's already started working on the follow-up, and hopes to have it out as early as 2020.
"If anything, the response to the last album really lit a fire and it's making me want to make a lot more music and make an album really soon. I've already started writing the next record and I want to release that next year sometime."
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