A very interesting topic. I'm sure alot of people who visit Cluas and who frequent many gigs in this country have at least once expressed annonyance at Irish crowds. While the atmosphere is very reserved, it might refer back to Irish culture in general. I might be going totally off the point with this one but Irish people compared to say American people seem to stand back and appreciate the artist on stage, while American audiences will roar, yelp and let the whole venue know of their love for a particular song. If you don't go crazy at a gig, I don't think that is a character flaw of any kind within a person. But I do see the point(s) that Darragh was making and agree with him on alot of them. Another thing about the piece is that it seems to concentrate on rock gigs; offering advice in the last paragraph of letting your hair down. What about the hoardes to go to see singer/songwriters where there is a low key respectful ambience? And sometimes the people who let their hair down at gigs, ruin it for others by jumping into them, shouting loudly etc etc....Just a few points I thought I would raise. But that proves that it is a well written piece as it is provoking opinion, especially like the paragraph describing the different decades of scenes. So fair play to Darragh.

aye, i see what you're saying about the singer song writer gigs, and would agree fully that someone going a bit gonzo can completely spoil that type of atmosphere, there was actually someone like that at the Crosby & Nash gig just recently, i did have more rock type gigs in mind though, and was trying to focus on peoples reluctance to like a new (unisgned) band, (how derogative comparisons are always made), rather than to necessarily go nuts for the record i hate 'moshing' no problem with a bit of bounce, just the pointless agression, thought id stick that in there

Cool. Was the person at the Crosby & Nash gig a girl at one of the tables?

no it was some dude from the back, not sure if it was upstairs or down, very annoying, i did notice that girl though, she was getting her groove on big time!

I'd agree with Daragh to some degree, I would somewhat place the blame for substandard crowds on the shoulders of hipster assholes who think they are too cool to go nuts for the music (chip on my shoulder? moi?) and thus make ordinary folk self concious about going mad. I saw the Shins twice in Ireland last year, at Whelans and at Oxegen. The Whelans gig was the typical "cool" Dublin audience, the Oxegen crowd had people from all over the country and even though the performance was probably better in Whelans I enjoyed the experience of the Oxegen gig more due to the atmosphere the crowd and band managed to create together. At Slint a couple of weeks ago (I realise the irony of complaining about cool audiences and then talking about going to see the shins and slint, but I've got a computer degree, I'm in no way cool) one of the crowd, a guy from the North, obviously frustrated by the dead crowd (although that was partly the bands fault) shouted out "we're too cool to admit we're having a good time". Contrast this with the atmosphere created by crowds that go to see bands that are percieved as less cool, The Frames consistantly play to raptureous audiences, a good Bell X1 gig is a really special thing (although to my slight dismay they're attracting a bit of a teeny boperish audience of late who just get excited for "eve, the apple of my eye" and chat amongst themselves the rest of the time). In all likelyhood people will be leaving Croker after the U2 gigs this summer after being in a crowd that was whipped into an orgasmic frenzy during the gig; its good thing the concert is outdoors, people will be needing a smoke afterwards. But it's not exclusive to Ireland, a friend of mine was telling me about a Franz Ferdinand gig he went to in San Francisco last year just as things were starting to happen for them over there. The venue was sold out, but aside from my friend and his brother (both Irish) the crowd just stood there pretty much stroking their chins, this is a band who set out to make music that people can dance to. Or maybe it is down to the drugs people are taking, punk was fuelled by speed; the Doors, the Dead et al were seen as acid bands and the Madchester scene was full of people E'ed off their heads. Coke might be getting cheaper and much more abundant and available in Ireland but as far as I can tell the drug of choice (not counting booze) for people here is still really bad hash. And cannabis is not noted for making people excited.

Nice article Daragh with some good points. Hopefully theres still some people out there that go to gigs in the hope of hearing some good music and having a good time. Some places in dublin its like people pay more attention to their own trendy haircuts and trying to look cool then they do to the performers.