Waterboys stand the test of time as they rock the Marquee

I was in my early 20s when I first encountered The Waterboys, an experience I will never forget to this day.

I was at a disco at the Gleneagles Hotel in Killarney and towards the end of the night, the disc jockey happen to play the song, ‘The Whole of the Moon’, to which the crowd went absolutely wild.

The dance at the time for a crowded hall was to stay in the same spot and just jump straight up and down to the rhythm of the song — three quarters of the way through, they had to stop the song as the floorboards began to give way.

Mesmerised by this I took it upon myself to learn all I could about this band and before long I was well up in all things related to The Waterboys. I saw them a few years later at a sit-down concert at the Cork Opera house and just sat there soaking it all up as they played all my favourites one after the other.

At that time I was also a big fan of the Irish Celtic rock band, Horslips, which took somewhat old traditional Irish airs melted down and mixed with rock to turn out this rather unique sound, so one could see how I would naturally migrate to this particular type of sound The Waterboys produced.

The band itself has undergone several lineup changes over the years with frontman Mike Scott being the one and only constant in the group. However, the quality of their performance never wavered with Memphis keyboard player Paul Brown, drummer Ralph Salmins and Irish bass player Angus Ralston belting it out to magical and capturing rhythms.

Their music had been described as “spiritual, poetic and powerful” and their live shows are intense and mesmerising. Taking all the above into account, and having managed to secure a pair of tickets to attend the Marquee to see my old friends once again, you can only imagine how I felt on the day leading up to the gig. So on this beautiful summer evening in Cork under our European renowned ‘Live at the Marquee’ venue, thousands of enthusiastic fans gathered for the one-and-only show that The Waterboys would perform at the venue this year.

The Marquee is just a marquee until you enter and discover just how vast it actually is, so I was pretty blown away by the sheer size and layout, and the mumbling of the fans grew into a mighty roar as the lights began to dim. As the stage area began to come to life, I could see silhouettes of the band beginning to take their places to rapturous applause from the fans. Okay, let’s do this.

The stage was bathed in a bluish purple light and on hearing a familiar chord build-up, the band burst into ‘Where the Action Is’, which set the tone for what was to follow and what was going to be a night to remember. For the next, ‘How Long Will I Love You’, practically everyone had their phones out to record this beautiful haunting song.

Scott swapped his guitar for keyboards when the band performed ‘A Girl Called Johnny’, another crowd pleaser which received tremendous appreciation. As they started to perform more of their popular repertoire of songs, the crowd began to react accordingly, especially for ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ and ‘Bang on the Ear’ — I could barely hear the band due to the participation of fans (and my own).

A few new songs were thrown in here and there and I knew that the time was coming to an end when the lights dimmed and the band left the stage, but I knew what was to come, what the whole of the crowd had come to hear and see — it just had to be ‘The Whole of the Moon’. Again everyone’s phones were recording and both hands in the air as they sang along — it was enough to make the hair stand on your neck.

What a fantastic, brilliant experience, a show which delivered an electrifying evening, proving once again that The Waterboys belong up there with the rest of the greats, a band which has truly survived the test of time and will continue to do so.