The City And Us

The City and Us are a four piece whose members include Elva Trill (vocals), Mark Hogan (vocals and guitar), Stephen Reilly (drums) and Stephen Youster (guitar).

Elva - who has a background in performance as an actor - and Mark - a singer/songwriter - decided to collaborate on music after years of friendship. They captured this moment in Elva’s kitchen one August afternoon in a 60 second clip they uploaded to Instagram.

While Elva was travelling to Belfast a couple of weeks later to film a TV show, she received a call from Mark telling her that (fellow Irish band) Keywest’s manager had seen the clip and asked them to open for Keywest on their tour of England and Ireland with an acoustic set. Both Elva and Mark said yes immediately and began feverishly writing and rehearsing brand new songs to perform for a crowd in Birmingham just days later. With the prospect of being asked to open the final date of the tour at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Elva and Mark recruited the final two members - Stephen Youster and Stephen Reilly - the band’s guitarist/music producer and drummer.

In January 2017, the foursome became The City and Us. The name itself arose from a conversation Mark and Elva had after watching the film ‘Charlie Countryman’ in which the lead character travels to Bucharest and falls in love with everything about it. This was something that had happened to them both many times whilst traveling alone to new and beautiful cities, and meeting new people.

In July of 2017, they headlined their own show at the infamous Whelan’s of Dublin. That night, they released another video - a cover of The Chainsmokers ‘Paris’. This time the instruments were an acoustic guitar and a table of cutlery and glasses filled with water. The cover received high praise, going as far as reaching the singer on the original track - Emily Warren - who has said she loved the creativity with which it was done.

After the show at Whelan’s, the band got the opportunity to headline a festival in Zittau, Germany. Then it was back to the studio to write and record new music. They also released a third video covering Calum Scott’s version of ‘Dancing on my Own’, which was shot in a field in the Irish countryside and caught the attention of a few Irish media outlets such as Joe.ie. Finally, they prepared to play Electric Picnic.

In 2018, the band was offered a spot at the Ho-Hai-Yan festival in Taipei, Taiwan. The rock festival, held on Fulong Beach in July, was jam-packed with over 30,000 people. While in Taipei, the band seized the opportunity to shoot their next music video for the song ‘Something Better. ‘Something Better’ will be released on the 29th of March, 2019 when The City and Us are once again back on the Olympia Theatre stage opening for Keywest