FROM THE ARCHIVES:Video didn't kill the radio star but the lack of drink killed the showbands, David Orr concluded in this article on the end of their era.
THIS IS A 20th-century time capsule, the lights are flashing through a blue haze of cigarette smoke, the speakers are pumping out the beat from all sides and John Travolta is on the floor. All around him, sleek, skintight jeans weave in motion, feet cruise to the sound and faces twist into expressions borrowed for the night.
It is Monday night in a city-centre discotheque, the pubs have just closed and here in the semi-darkness everyday life seems far away. After a few more glasses of wine, images blur and you are caught up in the pulsating sound. This is Brooklyn, this is Soul City. Dublin no longer exists and for a while you become one of the beautiful people for whom tomorrow never ends. This is the modern world.
A few nights later, Brendan Bowyer and the Big 8 are appearing at the National Ballroom in Parnell Square. Here there are no flashing lights and no throbbing sounds. Nor are there candle-lit suppers and German wines served by young, pretty waitresses.
If you are hungry you can buy a bar of chocolate and if you are thirsty a woman behind the counter will give you a cup of coffee or a bottle of Coke. The street-wise kids of the disco have been replaced by a clientele mainly from the country and this is their night out before returning home at the weekend.
The showband, that particularly Irish phenomenon which was once the hallmark of entertainment in this country, is on its last legs. In the mid-60s, there were nearly 600 registered bands in Ireland – now there are only about 100.
Where once there were 25 to 30 top bands playing ballrooms up and down the country almost every night of the week, now there remain only a handful: Joe Dolan, The Champions, The Nevada, The Indians, The Miami and Brendan Bowyer.
While managers, promoters, ballroom owners and musicians seem unable to find a solution to the problem, there is no doubt among them as to where the causes lie. The single biggest influence on entertainment patterns today is drink.
With 12-13% of the average personal income going on drink, Ireland has the highest alcohol expenditure rate in the world. What primarily determines our place of entertainment is not so much the nature of the entertainment as the availability of drink. Because ballrooms unattached to a hotel may not sell intoxicating liquor on their premises, their popularity in the entertainment spectrum obviously rates rather low.
This was not generally so in the 1960s. For 10 years, the showbands and ballrooms thrived, but with the onset of the recession in the early ’70s and the growing sophistication of the country’s youth, the scene changed rapidly. People were drinking at an earlier age and the stark, “dry” dance halls proved to have little attraction for the youth of the rock era.