More than 12,000 people gathered in Dublin’s College Green on Wednesday night for a concert held to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Kodaline, James Vincent McMorrow, Walking On Cars and The Whereabouts were among the acts who performed at the Three Countdown Concert, which was part of the fourth New Year’s Festival Dublin.
It looked set to be a miserable evening when the weather extended a traditional Irish welcome to concert-goers by sprinkling rain on them all as well as watering down every plastic cup of Heineken in the audience.
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“It’s beautiful Irish weather,” Walking On Cars lead singer Patrick Sheehy remarked to the crowd during his band’s set. “Thanks for sticking it out in the cold.”
When folk band The Dublin Legends took to the stage, the concert morphed into a mass singalong. “Black Velvet Band,” “Seven Drunken Nights,” “Irish Rover,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” and “Wild Rover” were among the numbers that the audience sang, swayed, jumped and danced along to in so far as the limited personal space available allowed.
In between sets, the audience entertained themselves with impromptu renditions of The Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and The Killers’ “Mr Brightside.”
Sporadic wafts of barbecue smoke, tobacco and cannabis blew across College Green, and there were even three marriage proposals on the night (with all the ladies saying “yes”).
Kodaline drew one of the loudest responses of the night when they came on stage at 11.45pm. Lead singer Steve Garrigan could have taken the night off with all the help he got from his fans who roared out some of the band’s songs including “One Day” and “Love Like This.”
After a minute-long interlude of fireworks to mark the start of 2015, the quartet from Swords in Dublin launched into their first song of the new year, “Honest”.
But “High Hopes”, their chart-topping single from 2013, stole the show. “That’s amazing singing, Dublin,” Garrigan shouted as the song ended.
When the countdown concert cleared after 12.30am, many were not ready to go home. Swords native Nicola McKittrick (26) was headed to a friend’s place for a second round of drinks.
“I usually stay at home on New Year’s Eve, but this year I had friends returning for the holidays so we decided to go out and celebrate,” she said. “Plus Kodaline are from Swords too, so we came to see them.”