‘Everybody here is a comedian’: Robbie Williams is ‘buzzing’ to perform at Croke Park as dynamic pricing ruled out

The singer will take to the stage in Dublin on August 23rd

Robbie Williams speaking to media in Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Robbie Williams speaking to media in Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

Robbie Williams has hailed Irish audiences as “unique”, saying he is “buzzing” to perform at Croke Park in Dublin next year while denying that he intends to compete with the Oasis reunion.

The ‘Let Me Entertain You’ singer will take to the stage at Croke Park on August 23rd as part of a Europe-wide tour.

Speaking at a press conference at Croke Park on Monday evening, Williams said although he grew up in England, he has “always felt Irish”, and performing in Ireland is “always a coming home”.

“It’s not lost on me, this opportunity and what it means, and the storied historical venue, that I will be part of its story yet again,” he said.

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Noting how other major acts seemingly share the same sentiments about Irish crowds, he said it might appear “inauthentic”, but described Irish fans as a “special audience”, one which creates a “unique” energy.

“There is a love and a passion and a wildness, and it’s the wildness that’s intoxicating because I understand the wildness,” he said.

The former Take That bandmate remarked how “everybody here is a comedian, everybody here has personality. It’s not the same in other countries.”

Dublin will be the 50-year-old’s fifth-last stop on the 28-show tour, which will begin in Edinburgh on May 31st and end in Helsinki on September 20th.

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A spokesman for promoter MCD confirmed there will be no dynamic pricing for the show.

Tickets priced between €77.25 and €152.25 will go on sale through Ticketmaster, subject to the site’s service charge, on Friday at 10am.

Noting that his Dublin concert is a week after the Oasis shows at the same venue, he joked, when prompted by reporters, that Liam and Noel Gallagher will be his “warm-up act”.

He denied planning the tour to compete with Oasis, saying he does not believe “anyone could compete with that” including Taylor Swift who he described as the “biggest artist on the planet”.

He said the pair are “old enough and long enough in the tooth now” to get through the end of their highly anticipated reunion tour, amid fears a renewed conflict may result in cancelled shows, and pondered how the brothers might have dressing rooms at opposite ends of Croke Park.

Robbie Williams on the roof of Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Robbie Williams on the roof of Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

He said music and the entertainment industry have become a “bit vanilla”, noting that the Oasis tour “is definitely not that”, adding that the reunion will be “incredible”, going even further by saying “music is healing”.

“And in the soap opera of their lives and ours, it’s very very interesting to watch to see, like Evel Knievel, if they’ll make the jump over all the buses, and a lot of people turn up to see the crash but for music as a whole, and the music industry, I think it’s an incredible thing that’s happening,” he said.

Williams previously sold out a show in Croke Park in 2006, as well as performing to a crowd of 120,000 in Phoenix Park in 2003, following a sold-out headline show at Sloane Castle in 1999.

He last performed in Ireland in 2022 at the 3Arena during his XXV tour which marked the singer’s 25-year-long solo career.

Robbie Williams on the roof of Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Robbie Williams on the roof of Croke Park ahead of his recently announced concert. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

Williams left boy band Take That in 1995 having joined five years prior in 1990 alongside Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, and Jason Orange at the age of 16.

In a 2022 interview with The Irish Times, Williams said he was “a fully-fledged, fully-blown, self-medicating addict” at the time of his departure.

He later rejoined Take That in 2010 but left again a year or so later.

The ‘Robbie Williams Live 2025′ tour will be supported by Elbow and The Lottery Winners.

Jack White

Jack White

Jack White is a reporter for The Irish Times