View from the Green Room: ‘Ay ya dancin’?…Ay ya askin’?’ Love stories began at Waterford's Olympia
Reeling in the Showband Years at the Theatre Royal.
I knew I was back in the sixties when I saw a guy combing his hair in the gents. The crinklies are in town and, for a change, I know half the audience. This third age generation is out in force to celebrate the loves and laughter of almost two generations ago. We’re reliving the music and the milieu of an Ireland that had found money in its young pocket and a generation willing to spend it.
And…boy can they sing. When Ronan Collins, sophisticated in a classy smoking jacket (originally worn to keep warm, by the way, in houses that were freezing!), launches into ‘To whom it concerns/I’m a believer/Lookin’ thru’ the eyes of a beautiful girl/Little Brown Jug/Dance, dance, dance…’ the house is rocking.
Everyone is singing along. Laughing. Remembering. And celebrating life after a life. Because not everyone gets to do that in their seventies.
There is never a wrong side to turning a decade over; the only wrong side is never reaching it.
This is a big show. Seán O’Dowd, of ‘Ding-a-Ling’ fame, rock and rolls for an age that never seemed to end and his Brendan Bowyer tribute of ‘Rock n’ rollin’/Kiss me quick/ I ran all the way home/ Hucklebuck' is a big winner tonight.
Gina remembers her band leader Dale Hayes from Kilmacthomas (real name Jerdie Mackey), who died suddenly on November 21, 2020. Gina recalls her first gig with the Champions was in Kilmacthomas. 850 people attended and she later told her father that Dale’s mother gave her tea and apple tart in her kitchen and that "people asked me for my autograph".
When she sings ‘You’re my greatest lover’, everyone remembers the 1978 controversy of a song that actually used the word ‘sex’. Different times.
Medleys are huge tonight for a show that never stops. Ever. Even to catch breath.
This audience doesn’t do the standing bit. Walkers, canes and zimmers make that a little awkward. But there’s plenty of fist-pumpin’, hand rollin’, side-swayin’ and hand-clappin’ for medleys like 'Young Girl/Obladi Oblada/Simple Simon says/It’s a beautiful day'. Chairobics for seniors!
Some numbers really fall into the new releases categories. Like Una Paloma Blanca from 1976 when we all first jetted to Viva Espana. A decade earlier, there were only two weekly flights to Spain. Seán Lemass’s Ireland was opening up and young people had a choice to live and prosper – somewhat – on an island that was no longer slave to de Valera’s blind economic policy of tariffs and self-sufficiency that drove the engine of emigration.
Showbands were the obvious manifestation of this new prosperity. Shabby chic in halls that frequently had little or no heating, poor toilet facilities where ‘hall full’ signs rarely, if ever, appeared at packed-out venues. Dance halls pulled them in and the showbands sent ‘em home sweatin’.
BUT…the bands were fine musicians and the singers were talented entertainers. This was the day of the five-hour show that began at 9pm and ended in the early hours of the morning. Tonight’s performance shows just how good these entertainers were. The brass belt out the backing, the guitars riff their way through the numbers, the keyboard fills in on everything and a remarkably young and talented drummer belts a mean beat. And the music never stops.
When the names of the stars of the era are remembered, there’s an ahhh of affection. Genuine love and affection elicits that ahhhh around the consciousness of the Royal. Dickie Rock’s romantic ballads and his fourth place in Eurovision.
There’s a gasp when Ronan remembers that ‘Candy Store on the corner’ was sixty years ago. Waterford legends Tom Dunphy and Brendan Bowyer, and the marvellous Joe Dolan. Joe’s hits power across the footlights and everyone’s belting out ‘Make Me an Island/ Good Lookin’ Woman/ Goodbye Venice Goodbye'…
This is the sixteenth version of this show and judging by tonight’s reaction, it won’t be the last.
And the introduction when a fella crossed the floor to ask a girl out for a dance? “Are ye dancin’…ay ye askin'?" Love stories began at the Olympia.
