Did you know? The first Whelan’s gig ever was organised in 1989 by the Kevin Street SU Ents Officer at the time, Lisa Tinley and the band featured was the Subterraneans.
That’s one of the facts to be found at the new Whelan’s 25 site to promote the 25th year of the venue. Now a Dublin institution, the Wexford Street venue and bar Whelan’s has seemed like it’s been around forever but it’s celebrating with a bit more than some gigs, namely, a Whelan’s record shop opening this year.
The Whelan’s 25 site says that the shop will for “both customers looking for hard to get CDs and bands looking for an outlet to feature their newest releases.” A brave move in this post-CD world for sure.
Gigs wise, Whelan’s promise special gigs throughout the year saying “Each month some of the biggest and best bands to play Whelans over the years will return to play special intimate one off shows. For each of these shows rock art specialist will be commissioned. A video of each night will also be made.”
Whelan’s has an extensive photo exhibition permanently on display on its walls but there’s also a photo competition kicking off with Whelan’s looking for your gig photos taken their over the years, which will include a public poll and an exhibition. The venue is also asking for videos of bands playing their stages.
More info and a full history of the venue can be found at whelans25.com.
http://vimeo.com/82336652
– Photo from Hugh McCabe’s Traces Of The Real – timelapse of Tieranniesaur playing Whelan’s Main Room.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
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CD’s?
They better be selling vinyl also or they wont last too long
Yeah, I’d hope there’s vinyl in there too unless it’s a temporary popup shop.
As a music collector I’m certainly not at all excited about acquiring “hard to get CDs” (generally throw-away objects of which digital rips exist for almost everything), but best of luck to them. I like supporting local artists, but 9 times out of 10, CD releases are poorly actualised and unappealing.
Seems almost (almost) pointless considering the support Tower has for those types of CD releases Irish artists put out (not to mention their market share + established name). Hope Whelan’s have a modern business model somewhere in there; they do a good Guinness anyway.
Its not brave having a CD shop just out of touch with what mediums people listen to music on. Aidan I couldnt agree more.
I mean brave as in possibly not clever.
Well i still buy cd’s they’re WAY cheaper than vinyl and i can listen to them in the car, and im not an aul lad, im 22 buti hate mp3s, I love just putting on an album and having that be what im doing, as opposed to listening to an mp3 player while im doing other things, people think because they download that the days of buying music are over but statistics show that 60 percent of people still buy material copies of music either cd or vinyl, im not usually one to follow statistics, but me and all my friends still buy cds and i know tonnes of people who collect vinyl so there must be somthing in that statistic….. fair play to whelans anyway 🙂
Do you have a link to show them statistics?