Gracie Abrams and Sabrina Carpenter next week guys
2 Likes
Was at the Weather Station tonight in the Button Factory. Very good show.
Me and the missus discussing on whether or not to go to Amble, down here at the start of the Fleadh. It seems every gig we go to nowadays people who attend don’t seem to have any interest in the music, and just go for conversation, off putting after paying the few bob for the tickets and that. Was it always like that in the 80’s and 90’s and that? I notice it more now when I don’t drink at gigs. Amble are slow set, so would make that worse.
Anyway, tickets bought for Saw Doctors in Dublin in July (roaster heaven) and will get around to getting Queens of the Stone Age tickets before long. I hear they put on a smashing gig.
For the record, I think Amble are fairly over-rated. No better than Ye Vagabonds. A good band, she loves them.
Going to see Jean Michel Jarre in Brussels in July. Giddy as fuck.
3 Likes
Paul Heaton tonight in 3 Arena
Nice day for a few beer garden pre gig pints
3 Likes
Will you be getting Jarred?
I have 2 x free Paul Heaton tickets for tonight’s gig in The Point if anyone is interested. DM me with an email address and i will send them on.
1 Like
Paul Heaton was excellent in the Point. Rianna Downey singing with him along with a 8 piece band including a brass section. A mixture of Housemartins, Beautuful South and new stuff. The crowd absolutely loved it. Heaton comes across as an absolute gent. Self-deprecating, droll and genuinely moved by the crowd’s response. He got quite emotional during the encores. 47 euro per ticket, putting his money were his mouth is around Ticketmaster and artists scalping punters. He is one of the best of Britain imo.
18 Likes
Radiohead rumours all over TikTok
1 Like
You and Locke and your aul TikTok’s
I hope they don’t leave their fans high and dry.
Kamasi Washington there in the 3Olympia. Kamasi always puts on a good show and there is lots of virtuosity but not much subtlety.
Just in the door home from it I thought it was class.
1 Like
Heading to Riverside Park Hotel tomorrow to see Frank McNamara on piano with orchestra for Coldplay songs. Sounds like a nice night ahead.
1 Like
Imagine getting into a scrap at a David Gray gig.
‘I’ve never heard such a rowdy audience’: David Gray concert shows how we’ve forgotten to behave in public
The singer felt compelled to post on social media about the ‘out of control’ crowd at his recent 3Arena gig – and the antics on display characterise what many see as a decline in manners in Irish society
Brendan Kelly: ‘the disinhibiting factor in the online world has spilled into parts of the public space’. Photo: Photo: Ruth Medjber
Rowdy behaviour at gigs is becoming more commonplace in Ireland. Design by Michael Gleeson
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience as rowdy as that’: David Gray took to his social media accounts after last Saturday’s gig in Dublin. Photo: Al Pereira/Getty Images
‘Manners and common decency simply aren’t what they once were’: Noel Cunningham, who wrote Guide to Modern Irish Manners.Photo: Joe Dunne
Brendan Kelly: ‘the disinhibiting factor in the online world has spilled into parts of the public space’. Photo: Photo: Ruth Medjber
Rowdy behaviour at gigs is becoming more commonplace in Ireland. Design by Michael Gleeson
John Meagher
Today at 02:30
It was the morning after the night before and David Gray had something he wanted to get off his chest. The English singer – hugely popular in Ireland thanks to an album, White Ladder, that remains the best-selling in our chart history – was shocked by the unruly and disengaged atmosphere at his 3Arena gig in Dublin.
Last Sunday, he posted a video on X and Instagram in response to “what was an absolutely mental gig”. “People were hammered,” he said. “It was so rowdy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience as rowdy as that. It was a bit out of control in a way. It’s very hard to weave the subtleties and emotional context and storytelling into the show. We just had to keep our heads down and power through.”
Perhaps conscious of being criticised for condemning those who had paid to see him play, he said: “When the big songs hit, everyone goes nuts. It was like Space X-level lift-off.” And then: “We’ve got another of these shows coming up in a few weeks and maybe that will be a bit more sedate. Who knows?”
The words were probably difficult to say for a man who has played countless gigs in this country over the past three decades, but they came as no surprise to some who had attended the show.
Ciaran Byrne and his wife, Martha, had travelled from Sligo to the show, and both were taken aback by the behaviour of the crowd.
“It was so unruly, he had to address the crowd about it,” Byrne says. “You don’t see that often, but the weird atmosphere was notable from the off.
“At one point, he was paying tribute to Sinéad O’Connor and most people sitting around missed it because there was such a commotion going on behind us. Two guys there trading punches. It was grim.”
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience as rowdy as that’: David Gray took to his social media accounts after last Saturday’s gig in Dublin. Photo: Al Pereira/Getty Images
3Arena security quickly moved to halt the situation and eject the troublemakers.
And yet it was the more low-level antics that irritated Byrne more. “It was an endless procession of people going to and from the bars,” he says. “It seemed to happen anytime he played a song they didn’t know. You were constantly getting up out of your seat to let people in with trays of beer.
“And I was struck by the fact that pretty much everyone around me wasn’t paying attention to the show. Many of them spent more time on their phone than watching the gig. Taking selfies, loudly chatting with their friends… The fact that Gray himself had to keep mentioning the behaviour says it all.”
That such antics would happen at a David Gray concert, of all places, will have raised eyebrows, but the singer himself mused that as the Saturday had been so gloriously sunny, many gig-goers had probably drunk heavily for much of it, and consequently let their inhibitions loose when the gig began.
ADVERTISEMENT
Play
Unmute
Earlier this year, when he played the intimate confines of Whelan’s, Dublin, one gig-goer – who attended all three shows – says he was taken aback by how disengaged some of the punters were. “You’d people leaving after they heard some of the best-known songs and on the third night, when he announced that he was just going to be playing songs from his new album, a number of people simply left. They had paid to see him, but they didn’t stick around.”
Byrne says there was noticeable disengagement when Gray performed new songs at the 3Arena: “I think people see it as a night out. They’ve paid their money and they can do what they want – to disturb an entire row of people so they can go to the bar, talk as loudly as they like during quiet songs. They just don’t care that they are having a very negative impact on everyone else.”
Read more
And, he adds, they were the sort of middle-class professionals who would probably complain about bad behaviour in other aspects of life at the office water-cooler on a Monday morning.
Irrespective of why the crowd behaved as they did, the David Gray incident characterises what many see as a decline in civic-minded behaviour in Irish society, a lack of basic manners. And it’s everywhere to be seen – from irritable motorists stuck in gridlock to short-tempered patients at GP surgeries, to electric scooter riders tearing down footpaths, to hell with pedestrians.
Rude, thoughtless conduct has also become a regrettably defining experience for some of those who attend international rugby matches at the Aviva. Again, a great deal of it seems to revolve around alcohol, with constant back-and-forth to the bars, much to the irritation of those who want to watch the match. The atmosphere has been roundly criticised as a result.
Some have pointed out that when rugby matches are held in Croke Park, there’s none of the constant pint-ferrying. The stadium operates a strict no-alcohol policy at the seats, so match-goers tend to stay put and properly connect with the game.
A well-known promoter who has worked in the entertainment industry for more than 20 years says obnoxious behaviour has become more commonplace.
“An awful lot of it is down to phone use,” he says. “The artists hate it. Taking videos during the show is bad enough, but it’s phones ringing during quiet songs that really gets their back up. And it pisses off the people at the gigs who are there for the music. I know from friends who work in theatre that it’s a problem there too – and it’s not an age thing, where younger concert goers are too blame. All too often, it’s an older punter who should know better.”
The promoter says some audience members’ inability to hold their drink is another factor in rude behaviour. “I know it might seem hypocritical for me to say it, because all venues in Dublin rely on bar sales, but some people think that if they’re at a gig, they have a licence to shout out whatever they want or to make life unpleasant for those around them. Obviously, if they really misbehave, they will be made to leave, but often it’s the more subtle, less obvious stuff that causes the annoyance. Basically, a lack of manners and a respect for others.”
‘Manners and common decency simply aren’t what they once were’: Noel Cunningham, who wrote Guide to Modern Irish Manners.Photo: Joe Dunne
The hotelier and TV personality Noel Cunningham has long been a stickler for manners and etiquette. He has even written a book on the subject. His Guide to Modern Irish Manners was a surprise hit on its 2019 publication.
He had been aware of David Gray’s complaint when the Irish Independent calls. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s indicative of an overall slide in standards on how to behave,” he says. “Manners and common decency simply aren’t what they once were.
“It’s a real shame that we do not include the teaching of manners on the school curriculum. It used to be part of civics, a subject that seems to have fallen by the wayside. When I was a boy in an all-male boarding school, we had a lady who came once a month to give us a talk on deportment, behaviour, how to conduct ourselves, and so on, and I’ve always carried those learnings with me through life. Where is that sort of tuition today?”
And yet Cunningham feels it is wrong to lay the blame on the eduction system. “Parents really have to step up to the plate,” he says, “to set an example, but all too often you see children in restaurants glued to their devices, volume up to the last. And you can’t really blame them, because the grown-ups are taking video calls in public, oblivious to how it might impact on someone else.”
Far from feeling that his views are on the extreme end, Cunningham is adamant that they would be echoed by all decent people.
“I mean, when you think of large gatherings, like a big gig or rugby match, it’s kind of become a no-go area because it can be such an unpleasant experience,” he says.
“It’s become increasingly hard to attend a big event where you’re not being harassed or disturbed or having pints poured over you, or simply being able to hear the musician you’ve paid to see. A lot of people feel like I do – I hear it all the time – but it’s just indicative of the general acceptance from so many nowadays that manners don’t matter.”
Brendan Kelly is professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and the author of several books, including The Science of Happiness. Overt displays of rudeness and poor manners, he believes, may be indicate of how our lives have altered so significantly of late.
“The nature of the public space has changed profoundly in just a couple of decades,” he says. “Part of our common space now is not just at the rugby game, or at the 3Arena, or even the street, we also have this whole new online public space where we interact. That didn’t exist before. There wasn’t an equivalent of the internet and social media 30-odd years ago, or indeed, for the vast majority of humanity.
“So, with this new realm, there were going to be shifts in how we behave in a public space, whether that’s on a social media platform, at a concert or at a match – basically, wherever people gather.”
Although Kelly says it is all too easy to blame social media for all of life’s ills, he believes platforms such as X have changed the rules of engagement – and our manners.
“I think it is fair to say that there are fewer disinhibitors on social media,” he says. “You can achieve a degree of anonymity that was not available before the arrival of social media. In the past, in the public space, you were accountable in your town or in, say, conventional media – where your name was attached to something and there was very little anonymity.
“Now, the disinhibiting factor in the online world has spilled into parts of the public space where we’re not anonymous any more, and people feel emboldened to do and say things that would have been unpalatable in the past.”
Brendan Kelly: ‘the disinhibiting factor in the online world has spilled into parts of the public space’. Photo: Photo: Ruth Medjber
Kelly is presented with a recent example where a person who politely asked their neighbour to be quiet during a concert and was told to go home and listen to Spotify if they wanted to hear music.
“That’s the kind of assertive, ill-natured response that happens on social media constantly” he says. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the new common space on social media led to a shift in behaviour that we see increasingly common in the public space.”
He also notes the emergence of what is known in pop culture as ‘main character syndrome’. “At the extreme, you’re looking at narcissistic personality disorder, but I’m not for a minute saying the world’s population has this disorder. What has become comparatively commonplace is a tendency to confuse one’s life story with the history of the world.
“Sometimes people confuse their own trajectory with a history of humanity. We’re all the heroes in our own lives, but very few of us are heroes in the world, so to speak. Sometimes, we can merge the two in our heads and that misplaced sense of importance can manifest in all sorts of ways we interact with others.”
Despite such an assessment, Kelly says he is “not too despondent” about the future. “I think for the digital natives who grew up with the internet, it’s easier to navigate the online and offline worlds than someone like me – I’m 51 – who lived a large chunk of my life without it. We don’t often appreciate what a significant thing the arrival of the internet was.
“I really believe a lot of younger people have a better understanding of social interactions, manners and common decency, and despite the sometimes regrettable example of their parents, will grow up with a much more responsible attitude towards social media and the internet.”
David Gray, meanwhile, returns to Ireland on May 1 for a show at Limerick’s King John’s Castle and he will be back in the 3Arena the following night. Maybe it will be a bit more sedate. Who knows?
I just hope you’re ashamed of yourself @TheUlteriorMotive
1 Like
Please forgive me.
12 Likes
Sounds like chemicals were rushing through their bloodstream
1 Like
There’s a certain class of gigs that attract horrendous crowds. The Air concert last summer was a joke. And the crowd at Bob Dylan (of all people) the last time were dreadful too (although my seat at the aisle at the back made it worse).