Sir, – I would echo the sentiments expressed in Louise Lesovitch’s letter (July 10th). Why was a permit to hold a series of day long concerts in the Phoenix Park granted? Surely local people’s permission should be sought before subjecting them to days of loud music and to the risks associated with having hordes of drunk people roaming around their houses.
Last Saturday’s concert in the Phoenix Park could be heard miles away from the Phoenix Park, some people found this disruptive or annoying.
It also served as a focal point where thousands of heavily intoxicated people could congregate; this had all kinds of unpleasant ramifications for some concert-goers and for people who live near the Phoenix Park.
Denis Desmond of MCD Productions, when asked whether he plans to hold a similar concert later this year in Marlay Park is quoted as saying “we won’t be held to ransom by thugs” (Front page, July 10th). But it is not he who is being held to ransom, but the people who will have to involuntarily endure the noise from his concert and the people who will be afraid to leave their homes for fear of being accosted by hordes of drunks.
I would suggest events of this kind should be held in isolated areas or in contained environments (ie stadiums) with ample security.
Any plans to deviate from this approach should only be considered with the consent of all affected parties. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Among the many sweeping statements Seanán Ó Coistín makes (July 11th) is that the stabbings at the Swedish House Mafia gig were the result of security and frisking being too lenient. His solution to this problem, while interesting, is absolutely ludicrous: “Drug dealing could be prevented by properly frisking people by searching pockets, shoes, wallets, bags, coats...and underwear”! Apart from the dubious conclusion that the violence on Saturday was entirely the result of drug use and in no way caused by excessive consumption of alcohol, where would Mr Ó Coistín intend that these intimate searches take place? There were 45,000 people at the gig. Maybe they could be coralled into an area of a similar size to the concert site where the searches could take place in enlarged portaloos? Add to this the casual suggestion that people objecting to such a search would have their tickets ripped up and it would indeed make concerts safer; as Mr Ó Coistin’s idea would ensure that gigs would have ended before any punters arrive. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Whatever one might feel about concerts in the Phoenix Park, the aftermath of a carpet of broken bottles is not only an eyesore but a potential hazard. Glass, the beloved material of the Greens, is a very dangerous and persistent material when broken. Many holidaymakers have received deep and potentially life-threatening cuts on their feet from broken bottles buried in the sand. A terrorist with a couple of duty-free whiskey bottles could easily hijack an aircraft; a full bottle makes a handy club, a broken bottle makes a handy knife. Chips of glass can enter the food chain in a factory.
Alcoholic and other drinks and foodstuffs should only be supplied in barrels, aluminium cans or plastic bottles which are much easier to recover and can also be recycled. The reality is that glass is a very out-dated technology for packaging food and drink. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – James Joyce got it perfectly correct in Finnegans Wake. It is, indeed, “the Fiendish park”. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – As a DJ and music promoter in Dublin I read, incredulously, Brian Boyd’s piece in reference to the tragically mismanaged Swedish House Mafia concert (Opinion, July 10th).
I feel obliged to defend a genre of music that has had such a huge impact on not just my life but the lives of multitudes of Irish people of varying ages. To level criticism at such a broad genre of music is hugely naive and insulting to those who make, play and champion it. In contrast, how many reports of misdemeanour, violence and criminal activity have there been at Oxegen, Ireland’s premiere mainstream festival? Pop music and rock and roll have been laced with drug references through the ages, just look at Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. JJ Cale lamented a love hate relationship with cocaine and Pete Doherty is hardly a clean-cut poster-boy for the Indie movement. Every genre of music has been tagged with a drug of choice.
MDMA and Ecstasy has long been associated with dance music and while I will not deny the connection, I would imagine that a lot of the “Madchester” aficionados who were in the Phoenix Park on Thursday night enjoyed the halcyon days of ecstasy’s birth too. Given Brian Boyd’s assumption that Thursday’s crowd were “forty to fifty-something”, that would surely have made them late teens to mid-20s in the Madchester 80s. A surprisingly similar demographic to Saturday’s drink and drug fuelled crowd.
Saturday’s tragic events, I believe, were avoidable. Usually when people go to a concert, they are united by a common goal: to enjoy the music of the act they paid to see. The likes of Swedish House Mafia, Deadmau5 and Skrillex also attract a minority who have no interest in the music and are not there to revel in their chosen act’s performance. This was not unforeseeable. I would invite Mr Boyd to come to the Twisted Pepper or The Button Factory on any given night and witness real music fans enjoy real dance music. The Phoenix Park incident was not dance music’s lethal mix of drink, drugs and ignorance, it was society’s.
My thoughts go out to the families who were victim to the atrocious behaviour. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I cannot understand why Tourism Ireland can’t be much more imaginative in its marketing of this country abroad.
If the mayor of a small German town like Triberg can increase its tourist figures by simply introducing “Men Only” parking spaces, then why can’t our tourism people work with MCD and sell our towns and cities as the best places to be guaranteed, after concerts, with being entertained by our youths slinging used condoms at each other, wrestling in mud baths, and thinking they have just seen a few leprechauns. Moving Statues are simply old hat. – Yours, etc,