RTE How Ireland Rocked The 80s

PTH2009

Great documentary on RTE now about concerts in the 80s in Ireland

The lineups for Slane were mouth watering with some of those acts in there Prime

Came into the World this day 33 years ago, same night U2 played the Point Theatre on the lovetown Tour

https://www.u2gigs.com/show1067.html

fillup

Yeah it was a great watch alright

I was at one of those u2 love comes to town gigs not sure if it was the night u were born though PTH

Was also at u2 in croker in 85, great footage of that in the doco too, brought back lots of good memories

As they alluded to in the docs if it wasn't for the music there was nothing positive going on in Ireland at the time

The 80s were a sh1t show for Ireland

AMKC

Why if Ireland was so down in the dumps in the 80s with nothing else happening then why did all the concerts happen here? Was it just cheap to host a concert here then? Who attended them? I am guessing not many Irish as most were too poor.

So was it all people from abroad attending them?

Dial Hard

Almost entirely Irish audiences at them. A lot of the RTE/2fm sponsored ones were free - Lark in the Park, etc. And even for the massive stadium gigs, ticket prices were nowhere near what they are now, even adjusting for inflation. My parents took me and my sister to Michael Jackson in Lansdowne Road in 1992 and the tickets were £25 each.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040533#Comment_120040533

What would that price be in todays money

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041196#Comment_120041196

A *very* rough online calculation would suggest about €60.

hynesie08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040272#Comment_120040272

Big Jim Aiken was a fcking miracle worker, Plus the likes of thin lizzy, Rory gallagher would put in a word when they were on the other side of the pond.

weadick

Good documentary.

Self-Aid has to be the most bizarre and ridiculous concert ever held. Eamonn McCann was dead right.

AMKC

When is this repeated? I missed it. It sounds good. I did see it advertised but never seen what day it was on and no I do not want to watch it on the atrocious RTE Player app.

Dial Hard

It's available On Demand on Virgin TV. Not sure about Sky.

Dreamweapon

@PTH2009 Apologies, but i always assumed you were 20-25 years older!

Entertaining programme but i wouldn't go along with the idea that the likes of Something Happens, The Stunning, An Emotional Fish etc. were of any great import. The first Feile in 1990 was musically dreadful. It wasn't until Feile 91/92 that we started seeing decent acts appearing. Not just Feile but the likes of Sunstroke too. But, hey, that's for the next decade in the series!

head82

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041196#Comment_120041196

Just for the sake of comparison. I went to see Simon and Garfunkel in the RDS, 1982. Queued up outside Golden Discs in North Earl St. Dublin and purchased 3 tickets @ £12.50 each. Total= £37.50.

Went to see Bob Dylan last month in the 3Arena. Purchased 3 tickets on Ticketmaster. €126 each plus booking fees (and every other bleedin' fee they threw at me!).. Total= €407.

hynesie08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041362#Comment_120041362

How much were you earning a week in 82 though?

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041252#Comment_120041252

It felt futile, but slagging it off was futile and dumb.

weadick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041395#Comment_120041395

They were 100% right to slag it off and show it up for what it was.

head82

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041375#Comment_120041375

I'm struggling to remember.. somewhere in the region of £60. I was single back then, little or no overheads so £37.50 wouldn't have 'broke the bank'.

Vastly different scenario today though!

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041403#Comment_120041403

Eamon McCann is a crank, even campaigned alongside UKip for brexit.

hynesie08

So 1 ticket was about a quarter of your weekly wage? Not trying to catch you out just intrigued as to how prices have grown in line with wages, seemingly not that much.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041375#Comment_120041375

Springsteen in 85 cost £15, but my hourly wage in the only work I could get in a local petrol station was £1.50. Back then going out for a pint was literally one pint.

hynesie08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041444#Comment_120041444

So ticket prices as a % of the weekly wage haven't hugely spiralled (of course, all associated costs have)

NewbridgeIR

I saw Sonic Youth & Teenage Fanclub play McGonagles in September 1990. Tickets were £7.

I saw someone pay £70 for a ticket from a tout outside. Back then, the total rent on a two bedroom flat in Dublin (for four people) was £72 per month.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041449#Comment_120041449

The thing is associated costs were mostly non existent. Even when in school we organised our buses to big gigs, £5 a head. This was when people used to pack their own food for the day. I wasn't at the Stones in Slane but most of the big events weren't piss ups, people were genuinely there to just be somewhere fun in ireland in the grim 80s.

hynesie08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041508#Comment_120041508

Oh no doubt, flagon of cider, foil wrapped sandwiches and a 3 mile walk in the pitch black with no mobiles, I wish I'd been there for it.

Was reading this article yesterday following the passing of Terry Hall. It was long, long before my time of starting attending gigs but would this have been typical in North Dublin at the time or retrospective hyperbole?

‘No violence – we hate violence,’ Terry Hall pleaded the night The Specials played Dublin – The Irish Times

I had no idea we even had skin heads.

That said the article currently has me bopping my head to absolute classic Mirror In Bathroom by The Beat.

NewbridgeIR

Paul Tarpey is not impressed.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.tarpey.104/posts/pfbid0rCJKHUoNMWSwoSojQxFE6FUiivqtx5P9ceWhMtXRagkkSNG1wBq9RdefWtqcSq3zl?__cft__[0]=AZW8xOgzooQpiaQgS3AOfBJg7Ql_kQZrnco7LhkiMhqXDJ_NX04x4Y8gm-DtWLnHbCfajSHMBqFR2npaw4fKlCP8Slsn3sLo55uec8978UYrD3RpGaY5ArzNwqwNVUT5TD8&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

dasdog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120049108#Comment_120049108

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ed_GNZDnU

I would have only been a nipper back then but do remember them. There were ones in to music and then just absolute arseholes who caused trouble - heard accounts from some of my older ska friends about them ruining gigs. Still traces of the violent kind lingering around by the end of the decade. I remember at Suicidal Tendencies which would have been around 1989 and attend by thrash/metal/punk types a bunch of them turned up, started causing trouble outside and the bouncers and some of the crowd knocked the absolute shyte out of them which was delicious.

The Nal

Good excuse to post this shambles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKZE6q4gYgg&ab_channel=gordinnium

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120073502#Comment_120073502

Unusual by not bad tbf

Out of interest did the 'American Skid Row' buy the name from the Irish band he was in ??

greenspurs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058186809/self-aid-17-may-1986

Similar topics in this...

The Nal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120073522#Comment_120073522

Its absolutely terrible.

And yeah they nicked it.

weadick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120073502#Comment_120073502

Good god that is awful

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040272#Comment_120040272

But relatively speaking the country did not attract big acts.

You had the one day a year at Slane, the very odd festival like Castlebar, the very odd big gig in Dublin or Cork like Springsteen or Michael Jackson.

But that was about it, you had no venue like the 3 Arena that could attract big acts all year round, and even during the summer you did not have places like Marley Park, St Ann's Park Raheney, Maladide Castle or regional GAA grounds to host gigs.

It's only since the Celtic tiger that big acts have really started to come to Ireland regularly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096844#Comment_120096844

I must have imagined all those big international acts I saw in the late 80's and early 90's in the point and RDS to name just the bigger venues of the day. Dalymount Park was another that had some crackers back in the day.

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096876#Comment_120096876

Who were they?

Just looking at a small list of the names here from 2018 and you have

Kendrick Lamar

Niall Horan

Sam Smith

Arcade Fire

Dua Lipa

Harry Styles

Ed Sheeran

Taylor Swift

The Killers

In the mid '80s the equivalent of those big names were not coming to Ireland back then.

http://dublinconcerts.ie/51639-concerts-in-dublin-in-2018/

Grandeeod

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096844#Comment_120096844

Your full of ****. The RDS Simmons court hugpavilion hosted major acts all year in the 80s. I saw Depeche mode, A-Ha, Duran Duran and loads more there. Held thousands. Add to that small venues like the SFX and National Stadium with big acts regularly. Big Country, Howard Jones, New Order. Month after months big acts rolled into town through the 80s.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096915#Comment_120096915

In 1989 alone and in the point depot ... BB King, Beach Boys, Erasure, Decan Blue, U2, Stevie Nicks, Aerosmith, Transvision Vamp, Level 42 and the Eurhythmics ( personal favourite)

Same year Neil Diamond, REM, The Cure, and Bob Dylan played the RDS

NewbridgeIR

In the second half of the 1980s, I saw the following play here

Simple Minds (Croke Park)

U2 (Croke Park)

Five Star (RDS)

Erasure (Point)

The Cure (RDS)

a-ha (RDS)

Bros (Point)

Michael Jackson (Cork)

Queen (Slane)

Depeche Mode (SFX)

R.E.M. (RDS)

Frankie Goes To Hollywood (RDS)

Duran Duran (RDS)

David Bowie (Slane)

The Housemartins (Waterford)

The Smiths (National Stadium)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096931#Comment_120096931

Oh man the bands we saw in the SFX!!!!!!! I was there till the bitter end with Tool in 2001!!!!!!

Fr Tod Umptious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096931#Comment_120096931

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096937#Comment_120096937

I'm obviously misremembering then.

I've always had it in my head that there were far more big headline acts playing in Ireland more regularly in the past 20 years than I recall in the '80s.

I always felt that Ireland was bypassed back then.

But obviously it was only my perception.

I think my perception of this comes from the Hot House Flowers, Tracy Chapman, Deacon Blue concert in the RDS in late August 1988.

Even though I went I always had the attitude that it was a bit "B list".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096959#Comment_120096959

I mentioned Dalymount, Bob Marley played there in the early 80's .... I wasn't there it was one I missed unfortunately.

bodhrandude

Is this programme on the RTE Iplayer?

Edit: Actually scrub that just found it on the player.

MOR316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096915#Comment_120096915

Queen came to the RDS a few times and Slane of course.

The rest of the acts who headlined Slane, U2, Thin Lizzy and Rory of course, Michael Jackson, Status Quo, ABBA were in the RDS in 1979, AC/DC played here a few times in the 80s, Bob Marley, Judas Priest, REM, Bros, The Smiths, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, A-Ha, Simon and Garfunkal, ZZ Top, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel (although I think that could have been 1990?) Neil Diamond, The Clash, Echo and The Bunnymen, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Metallica, Dire Straits, Tom Waits...

That is a lot of big acts to come to Ireland in the 80s. Some of them the biggest of the biggest. It can be argued that the majority of them, if not all of them, were bigger and better than anyone on your list...

fillup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120115870#Comment_120115870

Rory who?

Gallagher? He never played Slane AFAIK never mind headlining

MOR316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120116967#Comment_120116967

No, I meant he played in Ireland in the 80s. Hence why I put himself, Lizzy and U2 together. The Irish bands

PTH2009

Definitely a case to be said about Ireland missing out on the big American hair metal bands which you could say would be in there peaks in the 80s

MOR316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120118275#Comment_120118275

Bon Jovi were here. As were Def Leppard and Whitesnake. Van Halen never really ventured out of the States unless it was for Castle Donington. Kiss came to Belfast once in the 80s. Don't recall them ever coming to Dublin. Metallica came too but, I wouldn't class them as hair metal band

ZZ Top and AC/DC were here at their peak in the 80s but, they're Rock n Roll, not metal.

I am probably wrong on this but, did GnR play The Point around 1990? Or am I imagining it?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120041252#Comment_120041252

Brush shiels musicality was definitely hilarious on that day

bodhrandude

I wish there was a few more parts covered in the documentary going through the 90s and onto the noughties, so more Feile's were covered, Fleadh Mor in Waterford, Witnness, Oxegen, Electric Picnic, Forbidden Fruit and Longitude and All Together Now rather than just the 80s. Otherwise interesting and well presented.

Dreamweapon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120119533#Comment_120119533

I'm sure there will be a 90s/00s one as they previously did 'How Ireland Rocked The 70s'. https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/how-ireland-rocked-the-70-s/249166376397

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120118886#Comment_120118886

Pretty sure they didn't.

The Appetite For Destruction tour was wrapped up at the end of 1988. I remember my friends going to Donington that year - Helloween, Iron Maiden, Kiss and Megadeth also played.

The Use Your Illusion tour started mid-1991.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120118275#Comment_120118275

We missed nothing , thrash was here instead