Tribute to Sir Henry's Room 3 and a Savoy cracker among the club nights in Cork this week
The Savoy is alive again! Picture: Larry Cummins
This time they promise a showcase of young producers and DJs delivering the best of garage and bassline sounds.
The evening kicks off at 9pm with Biam and Doktor going back-to-back. This will be followed with sets by Wayden and Plax before we have another B2B set from CC Outpost mainstay DJ Leezur and Real Fear music collective and label lynchpin Ultra Pollen, before closing the night with Tobin. Tickets available exclusively through the Resident Advisor website.
These may well be some of the city’s younger guns, but older (much older!) heads will be visiting Clancy’s Skybar to pay tribute to Room 3 of Sir Henry’s. I’d bet good money that none of the above DJs were even a gleam in their parents’ eyes when the legendary South Main Street venue shut its doors for the last time, but one person who remembers is Marq Walsh. Most will know that Greg and Shane served up the best of underground house music and garage at the Sweat nights in Henry’s main room. There was a second space, the Back Bar, which provided more laidback hip-hop and R&B, for the most part courtesy of Stevie G. Well, there was a Room 3 that was in the Annex area, closer to the Grand Parade side of the complex, and while that room hosted different nights, one of the people associated with it is Marq Walsh.
With over 30 years DJ-ing experience, Walsh cut his teeth at some notorious clubs and venues, from The Chambers Bar on Anglesea Street to The Yum Yum Club at Nancy Spain’s, before establishing himself at Sir Henry’s. When that ended, he went on to start other club nights and spread his love of house music on both pirate and commercial radio. Walsh is one of the people behind the local label Vision Collective Recordings and is a seasoned producer under the name QuestionmarQ.
While the main room grooved to the pulse of deep house, Walsh’s Room 3 served up slightly harder and more uptempo house sounds. Perhaps the ‘Remembering Sir Henry’s Room 3’ nights were only ever intended to be a once off, but here it is celebrating its first birthday – which I feel is a bit belated as, if memory serves, the first night happened in December 2024. The fact it has returned around half-a-dozen more times suggests the night has struck a chord with a broader audience, and this Friday (March 6) it returns for what I believe is its eighth edition. While Walsh with his vast repertoire has managed to play some very different sets, Friday's set promises to feature non-stop Room 3 classics from artists such as Laurent Garnier, Sasha & Digweed, React 2 Rhythm and The Grid, as well as a few of his favourite main-room weapons too. Doors 11pm. Tickets €10 + booking fee.
Of course, if there’s one thing to top that this weekend, it’s the aforementioned Shane Johnson at the Savoy on Saturday evening (March 7). For one night only, Shane, one half of Fish Go Deep, will reunite with Tracey K, the Tralee vocalist on – what is no exaggeration to say – one of the biggest house classics to ever come out of Ireland, ‘The Cure & The Cause’. Doors 8pm.
