Monthly Archives: July 2010

Welcome To The House Of Fun!

Last Friday, I attended my third gig in nine days when I went to see Madness play The Marquee in Cork. Regular readers shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that my friend John also attended and he was kind enough to drive up and down from Limerick. Of course, I repaid his kindness by playing music from my iPod on the way down and back, with a fair bit of ska and reggae numbers soundtracking our return from what was yet another great gig. John’s a bigger fan of the band than I am but, like me, this was his first time seeing The Nutty Boys in concert. The band formed in the latter half of the 70s and released their first singles in 1979. They had their biggest success in the 80s and many of these wonderful singles formed the basis of their show in Cork. They began the show with their first top ten UK hit, One Step Beyond, and went on to deliver familiar versions of Embarrassment, Our House and House of Fun as well as some songs from their most recent album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate. My own particular favourite on the night, however, was their version of My Girl, which Suggs introduced by singing a slowed down version of the first verse before the whole band and the crowd launched into the song

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4th Time Around

Prior to his 1984 appearance at Slane, Bob Dylan‘s only other Irish performances both came in 1966, when he visited Dublin and Belfast. He made two more trips to Dublin in 1989 and a further eight to the Emerald Isle throughout the nineties. These were split between the North and South of the country and included his only visit to Waterford. He has notched up a further thirteen shows in Ireland over the last decade with only one of those in Belfast and just seven in Dublin. His tours around Ireland in the new millennium have seen him visit Kilkenny (twice), Cork and Galway. I saw him at the latter two gigs and also at The Point Depot in Dublin in 1993. That was my first time seeing Bob and I must admit that I didn’t enjoy it. I guess I had been expecting him to sound like he did on record and to play the same arrangements and even to chat with the crowd. He added Limerick to his Irish itinerary last Sunday and I was a lot more prepared for what to expect from my fourth time seeing Bob live on stage

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Indoor Fireworks

Now that the World Cup is winding down (or is it up?) I’ve managed to find some time to devote to my first love, music. In the last week, I’ve seen a couple of my favourite songwriters each put on a fantastic show in two Irish cities. I’ll tell you about the second gig at a later date, but now I’m going to fill you in on one of the best musical events I’ve attended in a while: Elvis Costello at Vicar Street. I’ve been a fan of Mr Costello’s music for more than twenty years, but I’d only ever seen him in concert once before. That was at the Hammersmith Apollo in London in September 2002 on the When I Was Cruel tour. He was backed by The Imposters that day, essentially The Attractions without Pete Thomas and with Davey Faragher as his replacement. My recollections of the finer points of that gig have been lost in the mists of time, but I do recall that Chris Difford gave a good showing as the opening act. Also, Elvis and his band bounded on stage and tore into the opening half dozen songs without a single word of greeting from the main man. I don’t think he was in the best of form that night and he may have had a go at a member of the crowd who interrupted him with a request for a song while he was addressing the audience. I wouldn’t have expected anything less

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