Live At The Marquee concerts liven up Cork; bring on Aitch
UK act Aitch is the big-name rapper at this year’s Live at the Marquee.
This year’s series kicked off with ‘My Therapist Ghosted Me’, which hosted three nights in Cork last weekend. It’s a sign of the times that a podcast can do three shows here, and hosts Joanne McNally and Vogue Williams again proved popular .
The Marquee shows are moving with the times and also are hosting the popular Bingo Loco on Sunday, June 4. The traditional gig at the Marquee may have evolved since the early days, when all live music acts touched down in Cork, but there are still some live bands playing, too.
The Waterboys, Rod Stewart, and others will all play here, but of most interest to my readers will be the dance and hip-hop acts. The glory days of welcoming Kanye, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and Jay Z may be long gone, but this year at least features a rap gig of note.
Things have changed. The current music environment is different, although 50 and Snoop and co remain popular and a lot of teenagers are going to see them later this year in Dublin. This year’s rap booking is the first in a while and it’s a sold-out show from Aitch. Many of those rap fans who went to the Kanye, Snoop, and 50 gigs in the Marquee will be scratching their heads, but Aitch is part of a new generation of UK rappers who have risen organically in this new era.
The Manchester rapper has had a string of hugely successful singles and he’s a very capable MC, whose debut album rose to number 2 in the UK charts.
The days of UK rappers being subservient to their American counterparts are well gone, and in the last few years Aitch, Dave, Stormzy, Headie One, Skepta, AJ Tracey, Little Simz, Central Cee, J Hus, and many more have proved as popular here in Ireland as many of the American big hitters.
Aitch tickets went super fast and it’s a good sign for hip-hop here. Drill, trap, rap, grime, and other hip-hop genres are thriving and, hopefully, this will mean that many more rappers play here in Cork.
The other shows that will most interest my readers are both dance acts. Jenny Greene is a regular visitor to Cork and she will be joined by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Gemma Sugrue for a show that will feature lots and lots of dance classics.
Cork’s Jack O’Rourke is also on the bill and he will be joined by Paul Reid and Dublin afrobeats artist Chris Kabs on what should be a great show. Speaking to Jenny and Gemma recently at the Marquee launch, both were telling me they were very excited for the show!
The following day, Aiken welcome the One Day dance event to the Marquee and, again, there’s a big line-up. Sonny Fodera, Soldardo, LF System, Dave Treacy, and Jen Payne are some of the big dance names on the line-up, and I’m delighted that they will now be joined by the latest addition, Jazzy, for her Cork debut!
Okay, I wrote a big feature here on Jazzy recently and if you’ve read it you’ll know I think she’s one of the best things to happen here in years.
Well, since then she’s not only gone number one in Ireland, but she’s blowing the UK charts open right now too!
Things are moving and ‘Giving Me’ is proving to be one of the tunes of the summer, both here and abroad. This one-day event is gonna be absolutely lit!
So there we have it. Live at the Marquee doing big things for the summer of 2023. In the next few weeks I’ll be taking a look at the Independent Park dance shows! This hot summer of 2023 is looking very good so far!
