Dublin city is clearly still strongly feeling the effects of the recession with the loss of four public venues where regular live music could be heard have been lost this week.
It started last week with the announcement that The Lower Deck was to become some form of billiards hall or similar, we tried ringing in but nobody there seems to know for sure, only that it was closed for renovations. This left those who used the venue for small gigs without a home. Then this weekend whilst we all were out enjoying ourselves, Crawdaddy, POD and Odeon all closed their doors.
The details behind the POD complex going is to do with the people behind Flannery’s looking to create a super venue capable of competing with coppers which I’m sure will be if nothing else interesting to watch develop. However this leaves some great music nights like Banquet and Heineken Future Bright without a home. Indeed Factory Floor at Banquet on Saturday was probably the last gig the venues will see for a long time if ever again.
The loss of Lower Deck is tough on the smaller bands just looking for a 100 odd capacity venue to host a small gig as is Odeon. Crawdaddy at 300 probably suffered most from the recent arrivals of the highly popular Grand Social and Workmans Club which have had hundred of gigs since inception catering for the 200-300 capacity.
Hopefully no more venues will fall by the wayside as I quite liked Crawdaddy as a venue and in recent years Tripod was the most under used venue in Ireland and certainly could have been hosting more big events. Perhaps though this was more and more on the cards and the takeover made booking gigs way ahead tough to do.
What are your thoughts? Where would you like to see nights like Banquet and Future Bright take place in future? Where will you be taking your 300 odd capacity and smaller gigs to?