Sonntag, 22. Feb 2009, 10:24

Of all the venues in all the world, you had to rock this one. Dublin city is beriddled, not just with rats and one-legged pigeons, but with music venues that have the potential to charm the pants off audiences and bands alike.
One such venue is The Olympia Theatre. Built in 1879, it is one of the more elaborate venues with a golden touch denoted to everything but it also allows intimacy with the capacity for 1,300 people. This built-in intimacy in such refined settings made Michael Stipe of REM take notice and chose the Olympia to test out live performances of their 2007 album Accelerate.
For Irish bands, Whelans is generally the venue of choice to engage their home audience before they break onto bigger venues with bigger ticket prices like the Ambassador or The Point/O2. Built in the grottier times of 1772, the woody texture and pint-soaked aroma of Whelans has hosted and adopted Irish bands from each genre of music. Its hey day was when the place was overrun with the singer-songwriter gang (Damien Rice, The Frames, Paddy Casey, Damien Dempsey) as they went for their daily pint. It had the honour of showcasing the Arctic Monkeys in their early days before they exploded and when their tickets cost €15. Today, thanks to the Phantom run night Phantasm, members of younger Irish bands are often spotted socialising, DJing and launching their EPs there.
The large, open space of the Ambassador hosts most of the metal/hardcore bands compared to any of the other venues. Trivium, Megadeth, Killswitch Engage as well as Kaiser Chiefs, Vitalic and Queens of the Stone Age have all played in its halls that feel like a deep-pit. However, the Ambassador shall be shortly closing its doors to rock and roll and shall be opening it to the books that were once held in the Ilac Shopping Centre Library. As one of Dublin's most popular venues, it will be sorely missed and difficult to replace.
The POD complex of Tripod and Crawdaddy is one of the more recent venues and has had some eclectic acts including Coolio, Boys II Men, Jape, Villagers, Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip which have all been packed like Christmas Eve Mass. Tripod holds the bigger acts that have already established their fanbase, whereas Crawdaddy is a cosy venue that gives the artist the chance to win you over.
There is an immediate atmosphere in these venues where the history is written on the walls and the songs echo through the halls. They have survived the changing image of rock music and all that they require from us is to keep coming as each bead of our sweat becomes woven into their story.