It’s good to have the Marquee back
Live at the Marquee kicked off with the Sugababes.
Big shows are essential for a city with aspirations of being an important city for music and between the end of May and mid July Cork becomes an actual music destination drawing lots of people in.
The influx was seen last week with the Bruce Springsteen show and there were many visitors from all over the world here to see the Boss. Despite a fairly big Irish schedule for Springsteen, there were lots of visitors from elsewhere in Ireland down to see him too.
The bottom line is people love coming to shows in Cork. It’s far more accessible than Dublin for many and it’s much cheaper to stay here. Despite much publicised travel difficulties for some at the show, the Blackrock shows remain within walking distance of the city for many.
It’s just as well because the Park and Ride and other facilities were not in use for the Bruce Springsteen gig. We have a wonderful city but our public transport is not up to scratch compared to most other European cities.
It’s a much bigger city, but I was in Manchester again last week and they can effortlessly move nearly 80,000 people to a football match on trams and trains. In Cork, if you can’t walk or cycle, the options are far more limited and we almost force people to drive in some ways. The traffic last Thursday was terrible everywhere and while this was the biggest show of the summer by far, it’s a pity that we remain so far behind other cities in this regard.
At least Dublin has inner city rail travel. Most Cork music fans will end up travelling to Dublin a lot for shows and this summer alone I’ll be going to a few gigs there, and I’ll be playing a few more too. Hopefully our hurlers will have a big day or two out in Dublin too!
We are well used to making the trip to the capital but when we have visitors coming here for gigs it really helps everything locally. The massive shows by Aiken in the Marquee and MCD in Virgin Media Park will benefit all sorts of other business owners here greatly, and added to the concurrent festivals such as the Midsummer, we will see Cork really come alive in mid June.
It all started with the Sugababes, and I was on warm-up duty for the popular English trio, who had a number of big hits during the R&B and pop heyday in the early 2000s. They have been very active recently and were one of the big acts at last year’s All Together Now Festival in Waterford. Their set was hampered by sound issues on the day but I’m sure it was a blast for everybody heading down to the new look venue in Blackrock.
The gigs come thick and fast for the next few weeks and regulars such as Christy Moore, Mick Flannery and Damien Dempsey will continue their visits to Cork but there will also be some new acts in town. Tipp native BLK recently sold out the Three Arena and will be headlining this year’s One Day event. This event traditionally brings the best new dance acts to Cork and in the past has welcomed everyone from Jazzy to Sonny Fodera. Fionn Curran and Black Traffic are among those joining BLK on the bill in Cork.
Another huge dance event takes place on June 1 when Bicep return to Cork for their first show in many years. They present their Chroma AV DJ set and will be accompanied by the legendary Joy Orbison as well as Sally C and Shee. This is a very strong line-up of credible electronic acts and, once again, it should create a big buzz around the place.
Other highlights include the return of Cork’s Lyra, who recently reached number one in the album charts here.
A very popular return to Cork is on the cards for Ne-Yo, who previously played here in 2009. The acclaimed singer and song-writer will be joined by Mario on what will be a night filled with R&B and soul classics on June 12.
It’s good to have the Marquee back!
