Clubbers: Get ready for Block Rockin' Beats
Dec Pierce’s Block Rockin’ Beats is at Live at the Marquee on July 4.
While I’m sure there are many under 18-year-olds aggrieved they won’t be allowed in for Belters Only, under 18s can attend Block Rockin’ Beats if they are accompanied by an adult over 21.
One can never tell, but I can’t see many under 30 attending. Dec Pierce’s Block Rockin’ Beats at the Marquee is merely the new Jenny Green and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra doing house classics – a chance for parents to cut a rug to pure ’90s nostalgia.
Maybe there are folks born after the millennium who dig nothing better than some Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, maybe there’s even kids born after 2009 who dig these sounds. It’s quite plausible. There is an enduring appeal to big jacking beats, catchy hooks and crunching guitar samples.
There is no denying the appeal of that musical era and genre of big beat, with its fizzing cocktail of electro, hip-hop and breakbeat. Why else is a weekly national radio music show so popular. So much so that there were Fridays during its broadcast when it would even trend on social media. Yes, “it’s the music”, as big beat pioneers Meat Beat Manifesto put it in 1996. But I also believe the pandemic played a role.
Pierce, a veteran of Dublin’s pirate radio scene, was part of the popular Pulse FM from 1995. In 2017, he launched Block Rockin’ Beats, which began to grow a steady following. The advent of covid and lockdown might have seen the mushrooming of zoom quizzes and the likes, but it also saw the show become a rallying call for thousands of people around the country who suddenly had time and space in their lives to recall better times and blow off some much-needed steam. Suddenly, those three-hour blocks on a Friday and Saturday evening gave rise to a community, as evidenced by the enduring presence of the hashtag #BlockRockinBeats.
Taking its title from the Chemical Brothers’ 1997 monster hit, it’s a show that wears its heart on its sleeve with a playlist from British contemporaries and fellow travellers such as Underworld, Orbital, Fatboy Slim, Faithless and The Prodigy, as well as American producers like Moby, Josh Winx and Junior Sanchez, and the Euro trance sounds of Jam & Spoon, Robert Miles and Energy 52. Music that soundtracked a generation’s happiest moments.
But Pierce’s affability and enthusiasm is also a galvanising force. His own personal health issues – a brain haemorrhage in 2023 – sealed the bond with his audience. Pierce, who has spoken with great enthusiasm about the idea of rock meeting rave, adds extra punch to his live shows by incorporating live musicians.
Pierce says: “The show is all about energy – it’s a concert, but we want you to lose yourself for a few hours. We want you to go back in time to experience these classic anthems with a full live band.”
Dec Pierce’s Block Rockin’ Beats is at Live at the Marquee on July 4 with special guests Bryan Kearney and Stevie G. Gates 6pm.
