On Friday afternoon, shoppers on Grafton Street in Dublin were treated to a surprise performance from chart-toppers Niall Horan and Lewis Capaldi. The pair were visiting Ireland and came across local busker Jacob Koopman, they stopped to watch the performance and drew in a large audience of fans.
Capaldi and Horan used their time in Dublin to visit the Guinness brewery and museum, they are rumoured to be starring in an upcoming advert for the brand. In recent years, they have become good friends with the One Direction star inviting Capaldi to support him on his Nice to Meet Ya world tour.
Niall initially reached out to Lewis on social media, “My cousin introduced me to his music when he had this thing with Vevo and less than 1,000 views on this song called ‘Bruises’ and I just heard his voice and was like ‘Oh my God, this guy is unbelievable’ … And I just wrote to him,” he said in an interview with SiriusXM from October 2019. The pair also did a friendship test with Glamour in the same year with Lewis praising Niall saying, “All joking aside, before any of my music was doing f–k all, he was one of the first to reach out and say he loved my music and that meant a lot to me.”
After stopping to watch Jacob’s performance, Niall, 28, and Lewis, 25, took to the mic themselves performing Niall’s 2017 single ‘Slow Hands’ and their own rendition of Coldplay’s song ‘Yellow’. They played for 13-minutes and wowed fans with Koopman taking to social media to say “This was UNREAL. @lewiscapaldi @niallhoran thanks for showing up and singing with me.”
The local busker is no stranger to famous faces turning up during his busking sets. A week prior, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk came along to one of the Grafton Street sets and tipped him with Jacob posting on social media “Yep, this happened! Got tipped by this legend of a dude, my childhood hero. Says I do a good Hallelujah.”
Koopman is a 30-year-old singer/songwriter from Bali in Indonesia, who lives in Ireland. He found initial success busking on Grafton Street and has since toured around the country, and played festivals including Castlepalooza and Electric Picnic. If you don’t catch him busking on Grafton Street, his next show is on 19th August at The SoundHouse in Dublin.
