In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 3

In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 3

These posts are becoming like a trip through my memory designed by Escher. Once again I finished with the eighties only to be tripped up by further memories as I tried to make my way into the nineties...

The Fall - Sadler's Wells Theatre, September 1988

This was my first time seeing The Fall and remains possibly the strangest 'rock gig' I ever attended. This is largely because it was NOT a rock gig but a ballet, with The Fall playing live while the Michael Clarke dancers performed a ballet.
A choreographed dance representing a football match between Rangers and Celtic; Brix being wheeled around on a giant hamburger and Mark E. walking forwards and backwards declaiming as if there were no distractions.
The scene where the dancers 'played' a football match was the visual highlight and New Big Prinz and Dead Beat Descendant the remembered aural ones.
I would see more Fall gigs, some better, some worse, but none quite as memorable as this one. Perhaps you can see why in these photos - http://thefall.org/news/pics/88oct08_photos.html

In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 2

In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 2

I woke up the next morning after writing the first part of this post and realised that there were at LEAST three or four gigs from the eighties that I had omitted that really couldn't be omitted. So my plan to do the next post from the 90's onwards is being parked while I do a further return to the eighties.

In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community

In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community

This book came out last year and I've been meaning to get it ever since. I finally got around to buying it this week and am enjoying dipping into it.

I remember when I was younger there were many conversations about who would win if Ali fought Dempsey, or if Superman fought Batman... The very fact that these were unanswerable questions was what made them interesting.

Best gig is one of those questions. I can't really answer it for myself let alone hope to come to a consensus with any group of people. The other question is what gig would I go to if I could travel through time? This book asks people to name their favourite gigs and provides ample material for me to consider when I think upon these things.

I know some of the contributors and was at some of the gigs. The book is probably mostly of interest to people who have some familiarity with the Irish rock scene of the seventies, eighties and nineties. It brings up feelings of envy, nostalgia and sometimes, bafflement. Rather than try to review it in any objective way I am going to spend some time reminiscing about some of my favourite gigs. A infamous pub bore like myself doesn't do one favourite, this will be many favourites.