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
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".
Oh man the bands we saw in the SFX!!!!!!! I was there till the bitter end with Tool in 2001!!!!!!
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)
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Good god that is awful
Its absolutely terrible.
And yeah they nicked it.
Similar topics in this...
Unusual by not bad tbf
Out of interest did the 'American Skid Row' buy the name from the Irish band he was in ??
Good excuse to post this shambles
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.
Paul Tarpey is not impressed.
https://www.facebook.com/paul.tarpey.104/posts/pfbid0rCJKHUoNMWSwoSojQxFE6FUiivqtx5P9ceWhMtXRagkkSNG1wBq9RdefWtqcSq3zl?__cft__[0]=AZW8xOgzooQpiaQgS3AOfBJg7Ql_kQZrnco7LhkiMhqXDJ_NX04x4Y8gm-DtWLnHbCfajSHMBqFR2npaw4fKlCP8Slsn3sLo55uec8978UYrD3RpGaY5ArzNwqwNVUT5TD8&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
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.
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.
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.
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.
So ticket prices as a % of the weekly wage haven't hugely spiralled (of course, all associated costs have)
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.
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.
Eamon McCann is a crank, even campaigned alongside UKip for brexit.
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!
They were 100% right to slag it off and show it up for what it was.
It felt futile, but slagging it off was futile and dumb.
How much were you earning a week in 82 though?
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.
@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!
It's available On Demand on Virgin TV. Not sure about Sky.
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