'Ticket's There' – Irish and International Music Blog

It’s Whelan’s birthday today and Tickets There, one of Irelands leading semi-part time, underground, can’t be bothered half the time champions of the Irish Independent Music Scene decided we couldn’t let the event pass without saying anything. Accustomed as we are to public blogging, we still aren’t any good at it, but we do our best….sometimes.

Love it or hate it, Whelan’s is one of the corner stone’s of Irish music. It’s as important to us as CBGB’s is to New York, as the Cavern to Liverpool and The Astoria to London (FYI, all three of those venues have been demolished / moved in the past three years). Like the Roisin Dubh in Galway, Whelan’s has always been a Mecca for new Irish talent and practically from the moment it opened its doors, it’s been at the forefront of the Dublin music scene. The dream of headlining or even gracing it’s stage is one shared by many and local bands such as The Frames, Paddy Casey, Mic Christopher, Josh Ritter, Mark Geary and Damien Rice cut their teeth on Whelan’s stage over the years with many of them becoming regular punters in the pub on their days off.

All ranges of Dublin music fans drink and rock out in Whelan’s on any given night. On any occasion you’ll see indie nerds, punk rock fans, emo kids, dance fanatics, traditional Irish heads and singer songwriter souls floating about the place, soaking up its boisterous atmosphere, its reliable pints, the heat from the various fire places and the music, always the music.

Tickets There has fond memories of Whelan’s from the six years we’ve been drinking there. While we wouldn’t be regulars by any standards, we’ve gotten the chance to see acts like Kevin Burke, Christy Moore, Concerto for Constantine, Humanzi, Oliver Cole, Jape, Dave Geraghty, The Future Kings of Spain, Cathy Davey, Paddy Casey, TKO, Leopold, Ham Sandwich and many, many  more rocking the place to its foundations in that time. There’s lots of memorable stories like New Years Eve a couple of years ago when Jape missed the countdown because everyone on stage had forgotten to wear a watch, or when Humanzi played the upstairs venue last year and nearly made the floor collapse from the crowd going absolutely mental. The place was like a bouncing castle and I still can’t believe the wood held firm.

My fondest memory of Whelan’s was a show by an American folk singer called Jim Page, who of course shares a name with a certain Led Zeppelin member. About ten minutes into a conversation with his wife, the ball dropped. Wasn’t long after asking her if ‘Jimmy and Robert (Plant)still toured together’ that the look was given and Tickets There suddenly realized the feckin’ ejjet who convinced us to go had gotten the billing wrong…ever so slightly. Ah well, turned out to be one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in there. There’s lots more but that’s enough for now. Everyone has their own fond memories of Whelan’s and Tickets There would like to think in another twenty years, we’ll all have alot more.

Make sure you Check out their Website for a chance to win tickets to tonight’s show which features the following acts,

Luka Bloom
Maria Doyle Kennedy
Juliet Turner
Gemma Hayes
The Flaws
Paddy Casey
David Kitt
Ham Sandwich.

Happy Birthday guys!!

This entry was posted on December 7, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Music, News with tags Whelan's Birthday gig, Whelan's Dublin, Whelan's music, Whelans, Whenal's music venue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.