Sligo-Help for newbies.

[brodick]

Looking forward to the concert Saturday night. Anyone know if we can bring a picnic maybe with some beers and wine. We tried to take a bottle of wine into the Nice Jazz Festival to see Leonard last year and it was confiscated. I suppose it was because it was a glass bottle but woudn't want that to happen again.

[kween]

Hi kween,
we are on the caravanpark Rosses Point and have purchased a bus shuttle from Yeats Country Hotel to the concert over http://www.discoversligo.ie

Transfer Bus leaving Yeats Country Hotel
Departure date: 31.07.2010
Departure time: 16:30
Fare: EUR11.00

gabri

Hi gabri

I think we will at rosses point aswell. thanks for the info on shuttle buses. I wonder will it be easy to get back to the campsite after. we will be on such a high after the concert we could walk anyway

[Purple Princess]

Musicmania - thank you so much to the News link - am shaking with excitement after seeing it!!!! Roll on Saturday!

[carlowmike]

by brodick » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:50 pm
Looking forward to the concert Saturday night. Anyone know if we can bring a picnic maybe with some beers and wine. We tried to take a bottle of wine into the Nice Jazz Festival to see Leonard last year and it was confiscated. I suppose it was because it was a glass bottle but woudn't want that to happen again.

Malcolm and Lolita (M & L) start training / work on the Grounds tomorrow,
They may have some inside information to share with us later regarding the above.
At Oxygen punters smuggled in drinks in 7 UP / Coke containers .
( Not suggesting for a minute that Leonard Cohen concert-goers would stoop to such tactical manoeuvres )
Glass containers would be out I am sure.
As soon as I hear from M & L I will share with you .

[carlowmike]

by musicmania » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:22 pm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0727/6news_ ... 5,null,230

This is the link for the news clip. Not sure if it can be viewed outside Ireland though.

Great link musicmania,
missed the News as I was dining with ladydi, mutti and jd in Dublin.
thanks for sharing,

[johnquigley]

Kind note to all regular contributors to this forum. As some of you are aware I recently posted a number of notices on this forum advising people from the greater Belfast area that I was intending to organise bus travel to the L.C. concert in sligo. Without contacting or informing me in a constructive manner my notices were removed. I frequently post on various music forums advising people of coach travel to gigs/concerts/festivals in Ireland. Occasionally I might inadvertently infringe the forum rules and receive a polite notice about this which I always heed.

End result? I have now decided not to run a bus to the L.C. Sligo concert. Apart from the extra expense incurred those going from Belfast now face a great deal of inconvenience and frustration.

And I thought this forum was to help Leonard Cohen fans.

Hope you all enjoy the concert.

John quigley
http://www.coachestoconcerts.co.uk

[rpan]

A few shots showing the stage and seating in case people cannot access the news bulletin itself.

http://rospan.blogspot.com/2010/07/liss ... shape.html

Binoculars look like a good bet if you are near the back

[Ballygal]

Sorry not to be able to view the News clip where i live, but i am so enjoying the pre concert build up!
Thanks to all of you with all those little snippets such as the photos of the setting up of the stage and the thought of extra titbits of Carlowmike's information to come just to whet our appetite for Saturday!!
Sligo here we come!!

[sturgess66]

http://oceanfm.ie/news/2010/07/27/suppo ... -concerts/

Supporting acts announced for Lisadell concerts

Preparations are continuing for this weekend’s musical festival in Sligo.

Five 40 ton trucks have already arrived in Sligo to prepare the site for the event. A 30 man crew has started preparing the stage for Westlife and Leonard Cohen

Music Gower’s to Sligo’s extravaganza festival are being urged to allow plenty of time to ensure they get the utmost out of their trip to Lissadell house this bank holiday weekend.

Its expected around 30,000 fans will flock to the Yeats County to see West life and Lenora Cohen during the three day event.

Concert goers are encouraged to take ht bus to avoid traffic congestion and delays. For those driving by car to Lissadell house there are 2 car parks with free parking at the venue.

Gates open at 4pm for all 3 concerts and patrons are advised to go early to enjoy the food stands across the site.

On Friday night it’s very a family affair as the supporting acts include Kian Egans wife Jodi from girl band Wonderland-and Shane Filans relative Glen Call kick off the proceedings at 7pm while westlife take centre stage at 8.30. The concert is due to finish up at approximately 10.15

While music legend Leonard Cohan takes to the stage at 7.30 pm each night with the event due to conclude just before 11 o’clock

Isabella Cassidy the manager of Lissadell house says she is very excited about the event

[carlowmike]

From today's Irish Times.
With some great pictures,
unable to reproduce pictures here, will try for PDF format later carlowmike .
(Picture)
First we take Lissadell . . . country house gets ready for Cohen concerts

Leonard Cohen

An aerial view of Lissadell House and the concert arena. Photograph: James Connolly/ PicSell8
PADDY CLANCY
WB YEATS fan Leonard Cohen has this weekend been guaranteed a view of the window of the room the poet used when he visited a young Countess Constance Markievicz and her sister Eva Gore-Booth.
Cohen’s backstage quarters will look beyond the audience, directly towards the room where Yeats eventually stayed when he visited Lissadell House in Sligo on regular occasions.
On his first visit to the house in 1894, a 29-year-old Yeats had to settle for a small room over the stables.
There was a custom at the time of keeping bachelors well away from any temptation that might be found in the big house.
Eventually, Yeats was to have his own temporary quarters in the house proper. Years later he was to write of the sisters:
“Two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle.”
Cohen, who will play before 20,000 fans in the grounds of Lissadell on Saturday and Sunday, is expected to pay a private visit to Yeats’s grave at the nearby Drumcliffe Church graveyard.
Under bare Ben Bulben’s head, as Yeats wrote, the northwest is expecting concerts of a lifetime, with Cohen’s shows being preceded on Friday by a Westlife show before 10,000 fans.
Production crews were yesterday completing final stages of a new amphitheatre in the Lissadell grounds.
The organisers were confident about the comfort and security arrangement for 30,000 fans over the weekend – 10,000 a night. (note added by carlowmike, I believe this has now increased to 12,000 - 13,000, )
Having picked the brains of local farmers this week, they are more than hopeful the rain will hold off.
Westlife will have two support acts. Kian Egan’s wife Jodi Albert and her band and Shane Filan’s brother-in-law Glenn Cal, a regular in Sligo pubs, will perform on Friday night.
Westlife, playing their first concert in seven years in Sligo, near the homes of three of the four group members, will host a special party with families and close friends behind the stage.
Cohen will perform for three hours without support acts.
Much the same article appears in the Irish Independent today .

[Mabeanie1]

From today's Irish Times.
With some great pictures,
unable to reproduce pictures here, will try for PDF format later carlowmike .

The pictures have been posted here MIck:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=22403

Wendy

[carlowmike]

Sunday Independent: By BARRY EGAN (edited)

Sunday July 25 2010
LOUIS Walsh says he would have managed WB Yeats, "if he had been big enough".
Westlife manager Louis, who will be at their show in Lissadell House near Sligo next Friday, said that he "would have gladly looked after the career of Yeats if he gave me 20 per cent of his earnings. And he would have been my first poet!"
He said he was "absolutely delighted" that his former partner John Reynolds, co-manager with Louis back in the early days of Boyzone, had sold out the gig.
Louis added that he would have liked to have managed Leonard Cohen, who plays next Saturday and Sunday in Lissadell House and, unlike Cohen's previous manager, he wouldn't have allegedly stolen all his money. "And Ireland is tax-free for artists!" he added.
Meanwhile, Reynolds said: "It is an honour to be putting these shows on, but equally important is the venue. It's a magical place."
The last time Cohen played Ireland all the members of U2 and their manager, Paul McGuinness, attended, as did Enya, the Honourable Garech de Brun, Daniel Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller, Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan and Bertie Ahern and Michael McDowell. Don't be surprised, then, who you might see in the west next weekend.
For those not up on their history -- ie Westlife fans -- the Lissadell estate in Co Sligo is a former home of the Countess Constance Markievicz and was a regular place of quiet contemplation for Ireland's most famous poet, William Butler Yeats.
Isobel Cassidy -- who runs the estate and whose sister Constance Cassidy owns Lissadell House with husband Edward Walsh -- said: "The excitement in Sligo at the moment is almost tangible; the last two or three years have been a real challenge for people and these concerts mean a lot to Sligo and the north-west."
What has tarnished this jewel in the crown is a very public court case. Last year, proceedings against Sligo County Council were brought by barristers Constance Cassidy and Edward Walsh over the public rights of way along certain routes at Lissadell.
"It's just finished after 58 days at hearing in the High Court," said Isobel Cassidy. "We are all just very happy that Lissadell is alive. When John put it to us that it was Leonard Cohen [who was going to play the venue] and how inspired he is by Yeats and that it would be Westlife coming home to Sligo, it was something we just couldn't not do. And we're so glad now that we are doing it because the area of Sligo and the west is alive with positivity about Leonard Cohen coming here."
The stage for Cohen and Westlife is set in a natural amphitheatre right beside Lissadell House, with the massive Ben Bulben mountain as the backdrop to the stage, and the shining Atlantic in Sligo Bay to the right.
Local lad Shane Filan is almost embarrassingly excited about his band Westlife's show. It is a homecoming show for him (and two of the other members of Westlife -- Kian Egan and Mark Feehily -- who hail from Sligo).
"In 2003, when it came up for sale, Louis came over one day with the Irish Independent property supplement with Lissadell House on the front. 'You should buy that,' he said -- typical Louis. I went and had a look at it just out of curiosity but it would have been a huge undertaking. It was also €3m," said Filan.
"But I was never interested because I had already started work on my dream house in Sligo, the house I'm living in very happily with my wife and kids now. Life is good."
The year started with Shane and his wife, Gillian, having their first son, Patrick, a brother for their four-year-old daughter Nicole.
"So that was great to be at home with the new baby," said Filan. "It was a big family year for me. But then Kian's dad got sick and he was dealing with that the whole time. It was hard to see that. Then he died and then Stephen [Gately] died and then Nicky [Byrne's] dad. There was so much sorrow and sadness in the year."
"All those deaths brought us together, made us stronger. It was a terrible shock. The mood of the band wasn't good during that period. It was a horrendous time, but we pulled through."
Westlife, July 30; Leonard Cohen, July 31 and August 1 at Lissadell House. Tickets, from €80 including booking fee on sale at Ticketmaster and usual outlets
-

[Aido]

Hi all,
nearly there now. I have a quick question. I know it was mentioned much earlier by Carlowmike but I'm just looking for confirmation that the food outlets at the venue are going to be as good as they were in Kilmainham. An army marches on its stomach and this soldier, for one, wouldn't like to arrive there hungry and face some of the stuff that passed for food at other gigs I've been at recently. Latest news please Mike. P.S. Well done all on your posts of the newspaper articles. Much appreciated............three more sleeps!!!

[carlowmike]

Missing from today's Irish Times report but published in The Irish Independent version today
"Cohen hasn't sought any special backstage packages but he is being given his own special dressing-room in Lissadell House itself.
The events are expected to give a €3m boost to the area, with a town-centre street party being thrown in for good measure on Saturday afternoon".

Aido, I am told that the food outlets at the Venue will be of the same high standard as was available at Kilmainham Concerts ,

[mutti]

On the train to Sligo...and the sun is shining!
Yahoo on our way!
Les (Mutti) and Diana