Stage and hot summer night await arrival of the Prince of pop

PRINCE COMES to Dublin on Saturday evening on a mission to make amends for the cancelled concert that cost him dearly three years ago.

The singer’s road crew were erecting the stage yesterday morning in glorious sunshine with Met Éireann forecasting the weather to stay fair until then with a perfect warm summer’s evening in store for Saturday’s concert at Malahide Castle.

It will be Prince’s first time in Ireland since a cancelled show in Croke Park in June 2008, which ended up in the Commercial Court. He had to pay €2.2 million in damages, interest payments and legal fees to MCD promoter Denis Desmond.

Despite the court case, Prince approached rival promoters POD directly to play a one-off concert in Ireland as part of his current European tour.

Robbie Butler from POD admitted that the previous cancellation had preyed on the minds of his fans when the concert was first announced, but since Prince has fulfilled all the dates on the European leg of his world tour, that fear has now dissipated.

The promise of good weather on Saturday will also help ticket sales, he added.

The concert will have a capacity of 28,500 – the biggest to date for Malahide Castle, which has in the past hosted concerts by Radiohead, Eric Clapton and Neil Young among others.

Nevertheless, the capacity is half the 55,000 tickets which were sold for the aborted Croke Park show.

It will be Prince’s only standalone show in Europe – the rest have been part of festivals. Support for Saturday’s concert comes from Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who recently shared the stage with hip-hop stars De La Soul at the Galway Arts Festival.

“I have been talking to his band and his production manager. He wants to come to Dublin and he wants to prove a point. He wants to come and do a great show,” Mr Butler said.