Weekend rocks for Marlay crowds as rain stays away

CONCERTS AT MARLAY:30,000 people were at Marlay Park in Rathfarnham, Dublin, on both Saturday night and last night to see Metallica and Fat Boy Slim

THE WEATHER gods finally smiled on Irish concertgoers this weekend for two contrasting crowds at Marlay Park.

Despite a doom-laden forecast that Saturday’s Metallica concert would be battered by wind and rain, the only doom-laden thing ended up being the gutteral vocals of American sludge-metal band Mastodon.

Instead, Saturday stayed fair for metal fans with bright sunshine and only a stiff breeze.

It stayed overcast but dry yesterday for an altogether different audience, who came to see the dance-orientated line-up headlined by veteran DJ and producer Fat Boy Slim.

Both events drew near-capacity crowds of 30,000 each to Marlay Park, which is at the foothills of the Dublin Mountains and has gained a reputation as a venue that is both picturesque and accessible.

In contrast to Saturday, when the crowd was overwhelmingly male and in theirs 20s and 30s, Sunday attracted a colourful and mixed teenage audience. There were plenty of coloured wellingtons, but no wellington weather: it was like Oxegen revisited but without the rain and the mud.

Dizzie Rascal, the self-styled world’s number-one DJ, called them the “Irish massive”. He and the two other support acts, Calvin Harris and David Guetta, have all had chart-topping singles this summer.

Both crowds had only a prodigious appetite to consume alcohol in common. The beer stands were busy but moved freely and there was no repeat of the exasperating queues experienced at some other outdoor events this summer.

The dominant colour on Saturday was black, with fans wearing ubiquitous Metallica T-shirts, as well as T-shirts from bands at the more extreme end of the metal spectrum, such as Cannibal Corpse and Cradle of Filth.

Saturday proved to be a special day for Co Wicklow band Glyder, who were added to the bill after Thin Lizzy pulled out.

The members of the band work part-time in between touring abroad, where they hope to make their breakthrough with their imminent third album. Though well regarded abroad, they are largely unknown at home as the market in Ireland is too small to sustain a hard-rock outfit.

But Glyder attracted a large and appreciative crowd as the opening act for Metallica. Guitarist Bat Kinane said the experience of opening for one of the biggest hard-rock acts in the world was “surreal”, especially having met his hero, Metallica singer James Hetfield, backstage.

“It was unbelievable. The feedback we got was good. It’s going to be hard to get back to normal life after that,” he said.

It was a special day too for a teenager called Russell who responded to a dare from Avenged Sevenfold lead singer M Shadows for “some crazy Irish motherf*****r to come up and sing a song”.

The youngster belted out a version of Pantera's Walkwithout pausing for breath.

“Bet you never thought you’d be getting up to sing in front of 45,000 [sic] people,” said M Shadows, who clapped the teenager as he left the stage.

The main act Metallica did a meet-and-greet before the concert. They played a crowd-pleasing set that surprisingly had only three songs from the new album and a lot of old favourites.

They started with Blackened and Creeping Deathand ended their set with Seek and Destroyfrom their first album Kill 'Em All.

They also played three covers, including their Grammy-winning version of Thin Lizzy's Whiskey in the Jarand Belfast band Sweet Savage's Killing Time. The vocals were sung by "our friend Ray (Haller)" from the band.