Party time at the Marquee with Jenny Green and the RTÉ Orchestra 

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Jenny Greene putting on a huge party has become an annual tradition at Live At The Marquee, and Friday night’s edition was one of the best yet. 

There were some regulars who has been going to see the show for eight years - at one point Jenny Greene started reeling off the names of people who’d DMed her on Instagram saying how far they’d travelled to come - and other music fans at their first ever concert.

There truly was a range of age at the show from kids to grandparents, and the shared enjoyment of dancing and tunes was infectious. The only ‘Children’ on stage however was the brilliant performance of the Robert Miles classic, which still sticks in the head as much as it did in 1996.

To my eye every possible shape was pulled and every space in the Marquee was at some point a dancefloor, including the stage itself when some members of the orchestra would get out of their seats and move, swing and shake to the music as well. 

When they also took out a Cork flag and waved that around, it got a particularly positive response!

Another element that aided the party atmosphere was the videos and visuals that were projected throughout. But they weren’t a distraction from the main draw which is Jenny Greene and the Orchestra, who have a built up a tremendous rapport with each other.

The icing on the cake though has to be the live vocals, mainly from Gemma Sugrue who led classics such as Rozalla’s ‘Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)’, which had the audience joining in with gusto, and even moreso with ‘Maniac’ made famous worldwide in the film Flashdance in 1983, and had a rebirth with ‘Maniac 2000’ in Ireland - still the fifth highest selling single of all time here - and judging by the reaction to the song Live At The Marquee, it as popular a song now as it ever was.

Jenny Greene was on the microphone several times during the show, using her radio chops to keep the show going. 

At one point she introduced another guest singer Cork’s own Jack O’Rourke, who absolutely pushed his lungs to the limit to perform an incredible verison of Gloworm’s ‘Carry Me Home’ which showed yet another way for Jack’s flexible voice to flourish.

All in all, it was another great night at the Marquee with fans of the classic dance music genre given high quality live renditions of the tunes they love and shared with fellow fans, which is as close to the nightclub experience a huge structure can create. 

People are looking forward to next year’s chapter already.