Question for Roger Federer: are you next, dude?
Venuewatch (1): while Eamon Doran’s has been shuttered since the summer, the financial losses incurred by the venue have now come out in the wash. The company behind the Temple Bar, Dublin venue, Eamonn Doran Limited, has gone into liquidation with debts of €917,000, including €602,000 owing in unpaid taxes. The premises is now operating under new management as 3 Crown Alley.
From the it-must-be-Christmas department: early bird tickets for both Oxegen and Electric Picnic are now on sale. Both have pegged prices at the same level as last year – indeed Oxegen are boasting that they are charging the same price that they did back in ‘07 (a 3 day camping ticket will set you back €199.50). Unfortunately, the promoters are unlikely to see a repeat of Oxegen 2007’s wham-bam-thank-you-mam instant sell-out. News that we can expect Kasabian in Punchestown, seeing as they’re in the frame for T In The Park, is sadly unlikely to help that state of affairs.
Anyone for another review of the decade? Stop your groaning at the back. The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis runs the rule over the decade that was: “in the future perhaps every artist will be famous for 15 comments”.
The Sound of 2010: yep, it’s that time of the year again too. The long-list of acts on the Beeb’s poll of polls are Daisy Dares You, Delphic, Devlin, The Drums, Everything Everything (jaysus, we tipped them last year), Giggs, Gold Panda, Ellie Goulding, Hurts, Joy Orbison, Marina and the Diamonds (huh? Sure, she’s been on the cover of The Ticket already), Owl City, Rox, Stornoway and Two Door Cinema Club.
Here’s word on the first new Irish fest of 2010 as EP’s Mindfield area, the one with all the talking and yakking stuff, shows demonstrates some expansionist tendencies. Per blog post by Joe Dolan’s man-with-the-pen Ronan Casey, we can expect “a festival of ideas” to take over the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham next May Bank Holiday weekend. Casey’s ode to this new fest paints it as the Irish Hay Festival (which is nice) with “six ‘main’ performance stages housing the official line-up and dozens of smaller tents/concessions”.
Venuewatch (2): the acts keep rolling in for the new 2,100 capacity Daniel Libeskind-designed Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin which opens its doors in March. While the venue may open with a run of Swan Lake, it’s then wall-to-wall with, well, fairly middle-of-the-road acts like Ronan Keating, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Christy Moore and Randy Newman.
Sunday papers play fantasy politics. In the Trib yesterday, it was the Irish cabinet dream team featuring the best politicians of the past 90 years, while the Times drafted a budget speech for the Minister for Finance to use on Wednesday. The real one will probably be scarier. Note use of the word “probably”.
One for anyone in the audience who was ever signed to a major label: a case of Too Much Joy, not enough royalties. This was highlighted here last week by OTR reader Karin H and has subsequently taken on an online life of its own.
Of course, this would never happen with U2. Manager Paul McGuinness has lunch with the FT (at the Spotted Pig in New York, an eaterie which McGuinness has invested in). “He tells me about the importance of attention to detail when auditing the band’s payments from record companies and publishers: “On not one of those occasions did we fail to uncover an underpayment.”
Waiter, there’s a Wenner in my soup. More rock’n'roll’n'grub as Rolling Stone mag move into the restaurant business. They’re promising grub that’s more “higher-end” than the Hard Rock Cafe. The new venture will be co-fronted by Irish dude Niall Donnelly – “an amiable Irishman who happens to have a skull tattooed on his forearm and prefers whiskey (Jameson, not Bushmills) to beer, has built a track record as an operator of upscale trendy clubs in Britain and Ireland”, per the LA Times. Hey, what about the Hot Press Bar & Grill? Or was that HQ?
Venuewatch (3): trouble in the Parlour. Harry Crosbie’s partners in the O2 seem to be fuming about the businessman’s plans for a big open-air space down in the docks for free performances and the like. Per the Sunday Times, Amphitheatre Ireland, the company who operate the O2, have moaned to Dublin City Council that Crosbie’s plan for the space, surrounded by shipping containers, will have “a significant negative impact on the O2” due to its “height, scale and bulk”. They’re not the only unhappy campers in The Parlour: the Dublin Docklands Development Authority have also got snippy about the shipping containers and Crosbie’s plans to tarmac the surface.
Venuewatch (4): we have a new contender for the title of The Worst Venue in Dublin for Live Music. I spent most of The Antlers’ gig in Academy 2 wondering why I ever thought this venue was OK. Then, it hit me: none of the other gigs I was at before in that shabby little basement were wall-to-wall with punters on their tip-toes trying in vain to get a look at the band on the stage. “Stage”? Is there an actual stage or just a few milk-crates lashed together? Poor Antlers, you really felt sorry for them. Still, they sounded OK. What do you think? Academy 2: The Worst Venue in Dublin for Live Music? Or is it still the now thankfully under-used Village?
Looking forward to hearing reports from OTR readers who may have seen Horslips in action over the weekend. You knew they were playing, right?
Dig this! Neon Indian play Dublin’s Academy (the room upstairs as opposed to The Worst Venue in Dublin for Live Music) on Wednesday and Cork’s Opera House on Thursday.
