By Andrea Cleghorn
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of Dispatches from Ireland by Bedford writer Andrea Cleghorn
Who knew American country singer Garth Brooks would be the hottest attraction in Ireland this summer? And then the most highly controversial? Promoters booked three concerts in Croke Park, Dublin’s football stadium (or “pitch, as they call it). That was cool, permission was granted by the decision-makers in Dublin. Tickets sold out immediately, so fast, in fact, that one more night was requested. The answer to that was under consideration. Then the promoters went ahead and sold not one but two more concerts. Now there were five, 400,000 tickets altogether. Excitement was percolating, but that wasn’t all that was brewing.
To get the sense of ticket sales in a small island country the size of Maine, that figure meant approximately 1 out of every 10 citizens would be holding a ticket, and that includes babes-in-arms and those in hospital in a coma. Who could draw that kind of crowd in the U.S.? Hard to imagine.
The brouhaha may have started with the neighbors about the extra chaos in their backyard, or maybe a purely lack of getting the necessary official permission from Dublin. Three was on the up-and-up, while officials were holding firm to the “maybe” non-decision on the fourth, but five threatened to bring the house down.
It was front-page news for days – back and forth, on and off. Brooks was coming, he was not coming, he would play two matinees for two days of the concert. On the news they showed a fuzzy clip of a tanker on the news supposedly full of speakers, amps and roadies headed toward the Emerald Isle.
Now the concers are officially off. Word from the Brooks camp was five or nothing. It was all anyone has been talking about, from the pubs up to Prime Minister Enda Kenny…every single day. Barack Obama has weighed in. Some people are furious, others treat it as a joke.
Refunds are flowing into credit card statements [like] a spring torrent. But nobody’s happy.
In the meantime, the pubs are full of wannabe country singers. While the answer on Garth Brooks is “no, nay, never,” wannabe local singers are trying to fill in the country gap. Have to say, I think Irish singers should stick to “Galway Girl” or “The Fields of Athenry.”
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