Drinking at Irish gigs

M

Mpsox

Registered User
Messages
1,615
I was at Bruce in the RDS on Saturday night, aside from getting soaked to the skin, he was his usual brilliant best and it was almost biblical to see blue skys and a rainbow appear during "Wating for a sunny day"

However, if there was one thing that came close to spoling it for me and Mrs Sox, it was the amount of drunks and their behaviour in the standing area where we were. I'm not sure which was worse
  • The drunk middle age exec type who poured a bottle of water over a girl because he seemed to think it was funny(her slap across his face soon corrected him on that).
  • The blonde princess who seemed to think it was hilarious to throw her empty beer bottles into the crowd. I know they were only plastic but I still don't see how that could be great craic
  • The drunk guy who was so out of it, before the gig even started that he could barely stand and ****ed himself before staggering off
By the end of the show, it was almost an obstacle course trying to get over empty bottles.

Are we as a nation incapapable of enjoying ourselves without drink being involved.? I'm no prude and enjoy a pint as much as the next man, but why pay €80+ to stand in the pouring rain at a gig and get so drunk that you won't even remember it? Am I missing something?

It's not the first time this year I've seen our obsession with drink at an event. I was at Cirque de Soleil in the Point earlier in the year. Fabuolous show, but I had to put up with the middle aged couple behind me *****ing almost non stop over the price of a G&T. I know the Point's prices are a rip off but to me it was as if they came for a drink and the show was incidental.

As a nation, are we incapable of enjoying an event/gig/show without drink being involved?
 
Mpsox said:
As a nation, are we incapable of enjoying an event/gig/show without drink being involved?
Click to expand...

Ah im sure some people can, but drinking and socialising are so interlinked in this country that it seems impossible to go to any sort of social event without drinking.
 
The ACDC gig in Punchestown was exactly the same.

I have not seen so many drunk people in one place since last St Patricks Day.

I think going to the concert for many is an excuse to drink, like they need one.
 
Slightly off topic, but I was at the Gaiety to see The Shawshank Redemption recently. They now allow you to bring alcohol into the auditorium in plastic containers. This is presumably in order to allow people who have bought a drink before the performance, or during the interval, to be able to finish it without having to throw it down their throat when the play is about to start. However, the couple beside me were lining up pints of beer at their feet to slurp away at during the performance. A friend of mine, who was there the same night, said he had to keep standing up to let the guy beside him who was also lining up drinks, out to go to the loo. Why don't these people just go to the pub for the night instead of ruining an expensive occasion for other people?
 
The good news is that it didn’t rain much last night at Bruce (and yes, he was brilliant) and while there was a huge amount of empties on the ground afterward I didn’t see too many drunk people. I had a pint before and one after but none at the RDS. I go to quite a few gigs and haven’t really notices drunkenness that much.
 

Your friend must have been sitting a few rows in front of me, the whole row had to keep getting up to let people in and out to the loo.
Almost as annoying was the drunk woman behind me who kept laughing inappropriately (as in - at bits that were not meant to be funny), and got louder and more inappropriate as the night wore on.

Last time I was at the Gaiety the woman behind me spilled her whole white wine down my back on her way back from the bar. She was more upset about ONLY having one more to sip on than apologising to me who was sitting there with a wet back for the rest of the performance.

They should not allow people to bring drinks into the seats in theatres.

As for outdoor gigs, its disgraceful the state some people get into at them - this country needs a cultural overhaul in its attitude to drinking.
 
truthseeker said:
- this country needs a cultural overhaul in its attitude to drinking.
Click to expand...

your damn right, but how do you change a cultural mindset like ours. We are totaly obbssesd with using alcohol to have a good time, its kinda sad really and i hate it when Irish people joke to people of other nationalities about how much we drink, like its a good thing.
 

Cultural mindsets are notoriously difficult to change and usually it takes a couple of generations for it to sink in. The key is in making something thats seen as a cultural norm into something thats seen as irresponsible, shameful and unattractive. A generation ago everyone drove around with no seatbelts on, now people learning to drive would not even consider not belting up - largely due to very hard hitting advertisments, media coverage of car crashes and a garda crackdown. There is no more of the 'ah sure go on and wear it in future', now its 'im sorry, youve broken the law, its time for penalty points'. But its not that law that enforces it - its the knowledge of what a stupid thing it is to be doing.


Smoking used to be acceptable in bizarre places like hospitals or doctors surgeries!! Now its become totally anti social and unacceptable behaviour, try to light up in a theatre for example and not only will you be told to put it out, you may well be thrown out and given a heavy fine. Again, its not really the law that enforces this, its other people in society - its become an anti social behavior.

If the same attitude was developed towards drink by society as a whole then over time the cultural attitude would shift. At the moment in Ireland no one really thinks twice if they see someone staggering around drunk out of their heads - except maybe to cross the road or tut tut to themselves. Any city centre on a weekend night is full of people staggering about, and it seems to be acceptable. Barmen will serve people who can barely slur out the drinks they want. Hangovers are seen as a badge of honour, people regularly go into work bemoaning the head on them. How much you can hold is also seen as a matter of pride. An injury sustained while drunk is laughed about and not remembering how you got home or what happened at the end is laughed about as well.
Events like concerts are used as opportunities to sell as much booze as possible and every off licence in the land does its best business on Holy Thursday because drink is not served on Good Friday.

All of the above attitudes need to change, through education, media coverage of the negative aspects of alcohol, penalties for staggering about in public, and a general social shift in treatment of people suffering the after effects of a heavy nights boozing - such as being sent home from work.
 

Wow Purple we were in the same place.....i could feel a weird energy

But we stood at the end of the pitch, actually on the tarmac and there thousands, yes thousands of people drunk.

The ques for the bar never emptied and the amount of people who staggered past me was amazing. I had no drink, i was driving and on the coffee.

Compared to going to a concert a few years ago now it just seems a session with a bit of music thrown in.

A group of 10 lads at the bottom of the pitch never even noticed the music, they just drank and messed all night. Along with throwing bottles in the air and annoying ALL around them.

But i enjoyed the night.....apart from when he played dancing in the dark and they turned the lights on
 
Ron Burgundy said:
Wow Purple we were in the same place.....i could feel a weird energy
Click to expand...

You must have heard the girl from Cork behind me (maybe 10 feet away). She spent half the concert on the phone and, I exaggerate not, I could hear her as loudly as the band. Eventually I asked her to text 'em.
 
Purple said:
You must have heard the girl from Cork behind me (maybe 10 feet away). She spent half the concert on the phone and, I exaggerate not, I could hear her as loudly as the band. Eventually I asked her to text 'em.
Click to expand...

That was another thing that annoyed me, some people could have saved themselves the price of a ticket and sat in their garden with the radio on getting drunk, they clearly had no interest in Bruce or the gig
 

Doesn't sound a whole lot different to Slane in 1985 so except you could bring in you're own beer in those days, which we did.
 
we're a nation of pi55heads...

i was at u2 on friday... about an hour before the end i went to get a beer... they had these guys selling em out of cooler backpacks... they ran out... and look of horror and confusion on so many people... it was gas.
 
I think it depends very much on the gig.

I don't wish to sound musically snobbish, but IMO when global superstars who have broad appeal (like Bruce for example) play, the dogs on the street will go to the gig just because it's an 'event'. I'm absolutely certain there were many people at Springsteen who were far from diehard fans, or even fans in many cases.

I don't go to a lot of gigs anymore but I can imagine there would a lot less drunkenness at The Mars Volta for example than there would be at The Killers - even if they played the same venue and had the same sized crowd.
 
I was at Springsteen 2 weeks ago and will be at U2 tonight. Didn't have a drink then, and won't have one tonight, for a couple of reasons ..

- can't stand plastic beer glasses - they are just wrong
- at the prices paid for tickets, I'm not missing out through having to step out after 30 minutes to queue for a toilet. At the rugby international against England, I left my seat just before half-time to queue for pints, mainly out of regard for the guy who got me the ticket. We got back to the seats just after the second half started, and both sides had scored since I left my seat 15/20 minutes earlier .
 
I spotted a mini-bus pulled over at the roadworks on the M50 around Knocklyon at about 4pm today. It looked like a gang on their way to Mettalica at Marlay Park, complete with their band t-shirts and the girls with their obligatory pink wellies. The crowd seemed to be mostly 40-somethings at a quick glance. Several of the lads were peeing up against the side wall of the motorway, while the ladies were lined up outside one of the roadworks portaloos.

They couldn't even wait to get to the venue to get tanked up - great craic, wha?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register