Every summer the Spiegeltent comes to town and pitches itself smack bang in the middle of the plaza in front of the Cork Opera House and plays host to a wide variety of musical and cultural acts under the umbrella of the Cork Midsummer Festival. Scandalously, it wasn’t until this year that I had the actual pleasure of finding out what all of the fuss was about. Ya, ya, I know you’re all agape with amazement as to how a social whore like myself could not possibly have been at least once before but to be honest while I had intended to go many times in the past the simple truth is that I’m a lazy bastard and anything that involves me having to pre-purchase tickets anywhere other than at the venue in question and particularly at any time other than the time for which the event is scheduled always sounds too much like hard work to me.

Also, I had convinced myself that the tent in question was going to be some grotty, smelly run down affair reminiscent of some of the circus tents that travel round this isle conning innocent parents into parting with good hard earned cash in return for laughable, piss poor entertainment. (For now I’ll leave those issues burning under the surface for another day.) Luckily, this time round some nice person convinced me that going to see a band called Wiggle in the Spiegeltent was a truly fabulous idea and even offered to get the tickets beforehand, which kind of left me bereft of any plausible reason not to go and lets face it, a girl uttering the words wiggle and tent in the same sentence is a sure fire way to convince me to do practically anything.

Upon entering the Spiegeltent on the evening in question, it would be fair to say that I was pretty damn impressed and quite honestly calling it a tent is like labelling a high class escort with a tag that reads five dollar ho... um, er... that’s not to say that I’d be intimately familiar with either class of aforementioned woman you understand. Anyway, Wiggle took to the stage and belted out their characteristically feel-good, ethnically-charged, dance-friendly electronic sound for a good hour and a half. Not surprisingly, there was much dancing most of which took place on the superb wooden dance floor that takes pride of place in the epicentre of the Spiegeltent and it was nice to have an equally crazy dance partner, which meant for a change that the usually bemused crowd had more than just my antics to gawk at. On mature reflection, quite possibly the best wiggle I’ve had in a tent this year!

Wiggle Cork Midsummer Festival

Labels: Bands, Electronic

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

How come when you give people the heads up about a gig that turns out to be a monster that no one turns up yet fifty gazillion of the very same people spontaneously decide to go to the one gig in ten that turns out to be an utter flop - I can only conclude that someone up there is taking the absolute piss!

So it was when I over-hyped the Very Be Careful gig that took place at An Spailpín Fanác recently. Very Be Careful are a bunch of guys from LA who play a type of traditional Columbian merengue music, who decided to start their European tour in Cork of all places. Ok, so they weren’t that bad and in fairness to them the sound engineer on the night was absolute shit - I swear to God if I never hear another cowbell again it won’t be too soon.

On the upside, it was nice that so many of you turned out on the night and if anything, that was the saving grace for an otherwise not so great gig, so to all of you, thanks for that. Now all I have to is find another fabulous gig that I can convince you to go to in a vain effort to salvage my by now tattered reputation.

Very Be Careful

Labels: Acoustic, Bands

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (3 have vented their spleen so far)

It’s Thursday night - you have work in the morning - and you’ve just come out of a great gig with Cork’s finest swing jazz band at the Crane Lane and given that it has finished at the very respectable hour of 11pm you have plenty of time to head home and get a good night’s rest, which sounds like a good idea seeing as you’ve spent the last hour or two dancing. So that’s obviously what you’re going to do then... um, er, surely?

Don’t be ridiculous, the obvious answer is that you walk down the road to the Savoy to go and see DJ Zinc, a drum and bass dj who happens to be playing that very same night. I suppose the thought of swing jazz followed by drum and bass is probably something that would cause most sane people to turn their eyes up to heaven and plead for mercy but to be honest I just don’t see the problem - you go to the swing jazz and dance your ass off and then you go to the drum and bass and do the same - it's all good. Although it would be fair to say that both types of music are usually frequented by a decidedly different class of woman... of course what I mean, that is to say, now that I think about it more clearly... different but both equally attractive and interesting. (Almost got myself into a world of trouble there!)

Anyway, enough of the bullshit, it turned out to be a great gig and Martin Gorelka took some terrific pictures on the night, some of which I have displayed, if you want to see the rest then just click here.

DJ Zinc

Labels: DJs, Drum'n'Bass

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (0 have vented their spleen so far)

Regular readers of this blog - that would be me, my mom and my sister - already know that the Roaring Forties - Cork’s greatest and internationally renowned swing band - and Jon Kenny - some comedian from up Limerick direction - recently joined forces and recorded a new single called “Oh Marie!” Personally I think it’s fabulous that the band took some time out to help Jon kick start his career again and hopefully at least one of them and preferably both of them will soon achieve their long time dream of appearing on “The Late Late Show” as guests of Pat Kenny, RTE’s chat show dynamo whose primary raison d’être seems to be something to do with making Joe Duffy appear talented.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, the band and Jon threw a damned decent shindig at the Crane Lane and George, being the kind hearted patron Saint that he is, made sure our names were placed prominently on the guest list. True to form, the music was great and the dancing was terrific fun - pretty much what you’d expect from any Roaring Forties gig - and we all had a wonderful time. Donal took some fabulous photos on the night, which you can see by clicking here.

A few weeks prior to that, the band had also played at the (new) Bodega and it was brilliant to have such a big dance floor to prance about (note to self: in future when you drag two women onto the dance floor at the same time it might work out better if you can actually dance as good as Brendan Fraser in that scene from “Blast from the Past,” as demonstrated here) and to make a good night even better, it was followed up by a big band dj set from Gary Baus, whose own monthly Doubletime night remains ever popular.

The Roaring Forties new single should be available in most records stores so just go out and buy the fecking thing - it’s not rocket science you know!

The Roaring Forties Jon Kenny

Labels: Bands, Swing Jazz

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (1 have vented their spleen so far)

Unless you’ve seen the Cuban Brothers live for yourself it’s a little difficult to quite convey the experience - madcap, crazy, fun, insane - are a few words that are probably on the right track. If guess if I had to sum them up in a single phrase then a highly entertaining fun-filled Latin house music comedy act would probably be the best I could do. Yes, I know, it does sound stupidly silly but that’s what they are and, believe it or not, it actually works quite well.

They played at the Savoy over the June bank holiday weekend and delivered the goods once again from their wacky stage show to the incredibly delicious tunes that Clemente dishes out on the decks. Surprisingly, unlike their previous gig at the Savoy last year, Miguel didn’t strip bollox naked and prance around the dance floor accosting unsuspecting girls as he went - if you really need to see photos of that night then click here! Instead, this time one of the audience did the honours and took it upon himself to hop onto the stage and bare all seconds before a collective of bored and slightly stunned security staff pounced upon the said misfortunate and escorted him to wherever it is they bring you when you’re bold.

If the Cuban Brothers play at a venue near you, drag your sorry ass to see them, if you like dance music then you won’t be sorry.

The Cuban Brothers

Labels: Bands, Comedy, DJs, House

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)