Headliner UB40 drew huge crowds on the Saturday night.
Organiser Ciaran O’Neill was delighted with the outcome of the weekend and confirmed to WLRfm that the festival will return next year.
The near two hour gig on Saturday was the best attended ‘Day Tripper’ event yet held
and showed the wise choice in tilting for UB40, in what was their only appearance in Ireland this year.
Earlier, Owen Kavanagh performed with Mark Graham and his group Skazoo, who really got the crowd warmed up, even dedicating some of the final songs to the Deise hurlers for next Sunday’s Munster Final with Tipperary, with some Tipp fans politely jibed for wearing their jerseys at the gig.
The group played some brilliant songs by the Specials and really added to the pre UB40 atmosphere and they were preceded on the main stage by Soul 2 Soul.
Fair play to UB40 for playing a solid set of hits, finishing with three encore songs that had the crowd singing and dancing in what was a very mixed audience from all backgrounds.
Their final numbers were, predictably but happily ‘Red Red Wine’, ‘Ivory Madonna’ and ‘Kingston Town’. One of our favourite songs was ‘There is a rat in my Kitchen’ and their great cover of the Elvis classic ‘Falling in Love with You’ also went down well, as did ‘One in Ten’, their famous song of unemployment during the Margaret Thatcher era in the early 80s period in England when 10 per cent were out of work in industrial areas.
The lads from the west midlands were very innovative and mixed Reggae with Ska to create a fresh, laid back sound.
Overall, we really enjoyed the gig, but there was some tension in the air and the band even mentioned some trouble in the front area of the stage during the early minutes of their set. Fortunately, that behaviour stopped although on the way out we noted a strong Garda presence and also some irate people near a Garda van, while another man was acting very aggressively towards a steward. The bar queues were long during the gig and led to some complaints, something which might be taken into consideration when planning next year’s event. The large crowd led to long queues entering via the Bolton Street car park entrance.
Despite these slightly negative points, we must say we still really enjoyed it, as did the crowd in what was a memorable gig by a top international band
Waterford lost a great musician and entertainer last week with the passing of Val Doonican. Mark Graham and Skazoo fittingly asked the crowd to raise their glasses to the memory and great songs of Val, he would have liked that, given that he worked in Graves Timber Merchants, only around the corner from Bolton Street.
Well done to the organisers, the performers the City & County Council for its ongoing support for this live entertainment weekend.
