Nicki Minaj
Malahide Castle, Co Dublin, July 2024
The rapper made the headlines for all the wrong reasons this month when her Pink Friday 2 world tour reached Ireland. After beginning her set 90 or so minutes later than expected, she performed for less than an hour – including several spells during which she left the stage for costume changes. An avalanche of complaints landed on social media (and, of course, on RTÉ Radio 1’s Liveline phone-in), taking MCD, the event’s promoter, to task. “It was ridiculous,” one social-media user posted. “There was a man on trying to distract the crowd and waste time and it was so obvious! We asked security at quarter to 10 was she coming or not and they said nope, that they were told she wasn’t so we left! Then heard she actually did show up after 10. Standing in the lashing rain and she shows up that late for fans, I want my money back!”
Barbra Streisand
Castletown House, Co Kildare, July 2007
The setting – a Palladian mansion by the Liffey in Celbridge – was splendid, and the concert’s midsummer timing was surely ideal, even if the organisers advised ticket holders that the concert would take place “rain or shine” (and that “ladies who wish to wear high heels should bear in mind that all approaches to the concert arena will be over grass, so we would recommend suitable footwear”). Seventeen-thousand people bought tickets costing between €118 and €551 – an eye-watering price even now – to see Barbra Streisand perform for the first and only time in Ireland. But with persistent rain in the weeks before the concert, traffic jams caused by roadworks on the M50 and N4, inadequate on-site parking, a single access point, and people fighting over reserved seats, the concert was problematic, to say the least. MCD Productions, which organised the event with Concert Promoters International, received almost 1,400 complaints (including nine from people who said they were unaware it was an outdoor event). Both companies apologised to fans; two months after the fiasco, almost 2,500 people were paid compensation.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
RDS Arena, Dublin, June 2013
The clue’s in the event title: this wasn’t Neil Young and his unfeasibly long list of hummable, nostalgia-inducing songs (goodbye Heart of Gold, Rockin’ in the Free World, The Needle and the Damage Done, and Harvest) but Neil Young & Crazy Horse, with their self-indulgent jams (hello extended guitar workouts and accompanying feedback squeals). The outcome was something that even some fervent Young fans walked away from. “Rock’n’roll may never die,” The Irish Times noted in its review, “but last night it certainly had a long, loud snooze.”
Garth Brooks
Croke Park, Dublin, July 2014
It was heartbreaking, Garth Brooks said, when he decided to cancel all five of his Croke Park concerts in 2014, after Dublin City Council granted a licence for only three of them. It was all five or none at all, according to the US country singer, who rejected proposals to hold two of the sold-out events as matinees. Brooks said he was willing to meet Enda Kenny, who was taoiseach at the time, to find a way to go ahead with the concerts, which were being organised by Aiken Promotions. “If the prime minister wants to talk to me, I will crawl, I will swim or I will fly to him. I will sit in front of him, drop on my knees and beg – let me play to these 400,000 people.” He did finally play five nights at Croke Park – but not until 2022.
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Cat Stevens/Yusef
3Arena, Dublin, November 2009
Fifteen years ago, after decades in self-imposed exile, Yusef, aka Cat Stevens, the singer-songwriter behind the classic 1970s bedsit albums Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and the Firecat, decided to perform live again. Dublin was the opening (and sold-out) show on his first tour for more than 30 years, as well as the debut of a segment of a forthcoming West End musical. (In fact, the show was billed as “Yusef, featuring his new musical Moonshadow”.) Fans were none too pleased, however, when Yusef walked offstage to facilitate the 40-minute Moonshadow section, which featured actors singing his songs. Early interest turned to annoyance followed by slow handclapping, booing and chants of “We’re bored”. When Yusef/Stevens returned to the stage, he mixed some of his well-known tunes with newer material – although not, apparently, enough of the former, causing one audience member to shout, “Play Peace Train, ya bastard!” Towards the end of the night, in a reconciliation of sorts, Ronan Keating came on stage to duet with Yusef/Stevens on Father and Son – although, by then, many in the audience were no longer in the mood to “just relax, take it easy”.
Bob Dylan
3Arena, Dublin, May 2017
“His choice of material was dreadful and his rendition of standards made famous by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole sounded like a drunk singing on a bus,” according to one disgruntled fan. One could say that if you don’t know what to expect at a Bob Dylan concert – no acknowledgment of or interaction with the audience, no requests, songs recalibrated to the point that they’re bordering on the unrecognisable – then you’re not really a Bob Dylan fan. You get the drift, though: as one gig of his Neverending Tour morphs into the next, he pleases no one but himself. The cumulative effect of Dylan’s concerts over the years in Ireland, as elsewhere, is to make plain that you shouldn’t expect to hear in a live setting what you hear on his albums. No wonder people walk away disappointed.
Van Morrison
Nowlan Park, Kilkenny, July 2002
Much like his old mucker Dylan, Van Morrison has made seeming indifference to his audience a trademark of his shows. As at so many of them over the years, this gig (at which he headlined with Paul Simon) gave the impression of a performer for whom affability is an unknown personality trait. Reviews of the event mentioned “snide sidelong glances at his audience” and an “unrepentant scowl”. Who said writers of sometimes incomparable songs had to be charming? Not Van Morrison, that’s for sure.
Lauryn Hill
Musgrave Park, Cork, June 2019
Lauryn Hill’s tardiness, preference for early exits and apparent general sense of artistic self-worth all seemed to be on show at this concert. Although the American singer and rapper’s first (and only) studio LP, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, from 1998, was an influential conscious-hip-hop album, her live performances could feature an unpredictability that often went down badly with audiences. For avid fans, buying a ticket was more a leap of faith than a safe bet. At this Irish gig she performed for 50 minutes, some of which she spent complaining not only to the sound crew but also about her band. As one attendee put it on social media afterwards, “Not being funny, but I sang more than Lauryn Hill this evening, and I wasn’t being paid.”
Swedish House Mafia
Phoenix Park, Dublin, July 2012
Some gigs just go seriously, disastrously wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with the performers. So it was when the electronic dance act Swedish House Mafia played in front of 45,000 fans at a concert where nine people were stabbed. “The festival itself was amazing,” the band said. “We had no idea this had happened, and neither did the other numerous artists who played.” Following the concert, MCD met the Garda commissioner to review safety protocols for any future events at the venue.
Guns N’ Roses
3Arena, Dublin, September 2010
Arriving in Dublin after chaotic sets at the Reading and Leeds festivals, Guns N’ Roses did it again, arriving on stage in Dublin almost an hour late. The initial booing subsided somewhat, but then, 20 minutes into the gig, after plastic cups and other items were thrown on stage, the band’s lead singer, Axl Rose, stopped (at the start of Welcome to the Jungle) and said, “Here’s the deal: one more bottle and we go ...” Whoosh: something landed close to his feet, the band walked off, the house lights went up, and then something unprecedented happened – Denis Desmond, the head of MCD, who usually prefers to remain in the background, walked onstage and asked the rowdier elements of the audience to “refrain from throwing items ... I promise you a great show, but you need to be calm.” An hour or so after Guns N’ Roses had walked off, they returned and played until almost 1am – although by that point much of the audience had long since departed for a bus home.
