The "display" tonight...

nesf

Was it just me or did it look really bad and tacky on tv tonight? Maybe it looked better if you were there, but I really wasn't impressed at all by the coverage by RTE tonight.

logonapr

I was there and it wasn't any better. Very disappointing.

Balmed Out

I was there but couldnt see the waterford spraoi dragon thing but the fire works were impressive. The carnival was excellent although from, 3 or 3.3o on it got a bit too crowded

gimmick

logonapr wrote:

I was there and it wasn't any better. Very disappointing.

How was it dissapointing? What were you expecting? Fireworks are fireworks.

Swear to God, people just love to moan and belittle. You no doubt took great pleasure in telling everyone it was very disspointing, as people seem to love when things go wrong.

I thought the event was spectacular. The bit at the end where all the building tops started 'exploding' was simply amazing. It was great to see so may people enjoying a great event.

As for it looking tacky, well fireworks by their very nature are tacky. Doesnt take from them being fun though.

logonapr

To some including gimmick perhaps 'Fireworks are fireworks.'
However there are others who would compare displays they have seen and to them not all fireworks displays are the same. I know from speaking to some others I was far from being alone in expressing a degree of disappointment relative to expectations.
It most definitely was not the best fireworks display that I have ever witnessed and perhaps I simply expected too much but I thought and expected more that I witnessed.
I never said it was bad just 'very disappointing'.

nesf

Personally I expected for there to be a decent and impressive display. I only saw it on television so I'm not completely set against it since it could have been far more impressive live and just be bad coverage by RTE.

I was using the word tacky to describe more than the fireworks, I was referring to the "stage" performances on Patrick's St. shown by RTE before the fireworks. That and I didn't see anything on RTE's coverage that actually represented culture in Cork. The serpent was a nice "artistic" piece but it personally was very shallow for me.

It just really seemed to me that a bunch of non-Cork people came down, Dubs in particular, had a party for themselves and ignored pretty much anything to do with the city itself.

Then again I find the idea of Cork as a capital of culture very confusing. I love this city, but it doesn't exude culture, for the most part it just is a regular city with no real strong group cultural achievements. For instance nearly all the music played during the festival was from dublin bands. Which is not a bad thing, since dublin has produced some fantastic bands, but it an indication of the lack of such in Cork itself.

Personally I think it should be Cork, Capital of Irish Culture, especially that of Dublins.

Then again I'm a cynic.

DMC

TBH, I'd agree to a certain extent with nesf. If you said name a famous or semi-famous Cork band... you'd be struggling! The Frank and Walters were the only one who's light lit a national stage, albeit briefly. (I'm thinking off-hand, I might add, I'd be gladly proved wrong!)

I'd have picked Galway, which already has a huge arts and film festival each summer, Macnas etc, ahead of Cork when it came to choosing a city of culture.

Jim Comic

DMC wrote:

TBH, I'd agree to a certain extent with nesf. If you said name a famous or semi-famous Cork band... you'd be struggling! The Frank and Walters were the only one who's light lit a national stage, albeit briefly. (I'm thinking off-hand, I might add, I'd be gladly proved wrong!)

rory gallagher, sultans of ping, simple kid, john spillane, 5 go down to the sea - all spring to mind.

nesf

Sultans of Ping????

Sorry I love their jumper song, but as a cultural icon? lol

I just think that this will end up as a celebration of irish, and primarily dublin culture given the backers behind this.

Cork has some good cultural aspects, we have some very nice parks, a beatuiful opera house and a nice art gallery. We just don't have a huge cultural underground within the city. Sure there is a very good gig/live band scene, but it is overshadowed by the severe chav/knacker/idiot culture of the city. Just look at the club scene in cork as an example. We don't have a single "nice" club. Just a bunch of drunken meat markets with a very violent edge.

Cork has a good cultural feel within the alternative aspects of the populace, look at http://www.wheresmeculture.com for a representation of it. I just think that this "event" will in no way celebrate the actual cultural aspects of Cork, but celebrate the investor's veiws on culture. IE primarily a high-brow aspect of culure that lives in Dublin and is near non-existent in Cork itself. We have a good underground music culture and some strong alternative culure aspects, but we don't have alot of what would be considered to be mainstream Irish culture, which will be the focus of this year's events.

That said in alot of ways it will be very good for the city from an economic standpoint.

DMC

Jim Comic wrote:

rory gallagher, sultans of ping, simple kid, john spillane, 5 go down to the sea - all spring to mind.

Grand!

Jim Comic

nesf wrote:

Sultans of Ping????

Sorry I love their jumper song, but as a cultural icon?

to some people rock 'n' roll is culture too y'know!

nesf

Jim Comic wrote:

to some people rock 'n' roll is culture too y'know!

As a metal head believe me I know this. But I've been referring to "mainstream" culture in this thread for the most part, since that is what this year seems to be about. The Sultans of Ping had a great album and I enjoyed their music. But they on the other hand didn't have a wide enough appeal to warrant being mentioned in the kind of pigeon-holed culture the events have represented.

I'll be the first to say that we have a very cool underground music scene here, just look at the line up at the wheresmeculture party, it was fantastic with something to suit most tastes! My point is that this aspect of Cork culture will be completely ignored during the events, and not represented.

For the most part I think that this year will celebrate the general culture of Ireland and the world while to a large extent ignoring the culture of cork itself. This is my main problem with it. I haven't heard of much events celebrating present cork culutre for regular cork people (outside of wheresmeculture events). It just seems like one big celebration of things that have no real significance in cork itself.

I can see the realities of the situation, but it still doesn't sit well with me. One thing that could go down well would to be to address some of the cultural failings of the city somehow. We suffer from an awful knacker culture in cork that could well use some changes.

D-Generate

I thought the fireworks were pretty disappointing also. A couple of things annoyed me about it.

Firstly, the fireworks were split in to two, one group down towards the Marina and another group up by the Campfields. In my opinion this was too far away from the crowd. The sound of the fireworks was barely audible over teh poorly picked music to go along with them. The fireworks should have been amalgamated in to a more central location, for instance on the river, then we could have felt the power of the fireworks. Some may say that they had to be away for health and safety reasons but I doubt this because for the finale many fireworks were launched off of the surrounding buildings. Now that piece was spectacular because you could feel the power of them. I pity the poor people you were on the north side of the river, they definitely could not see the Campfields fireworks which was just a demonstration of a bit of poor planning.

I thought the last minute of the fireworks was very good but I have been to many other demonstrations where the whole show was like that. Alton Towers for instance has fireworks every night for three nights at the end of its season. Its a regular thing over there and believe me it is the kind of show we could only have wished for. It is wonderfully choreographed to music, in time with the symphony of sound. It somehow manages to show culture from fireworks that our show seemed to lack.

Now they do that every year and presumably they don't spend a great amount on them becasue they do not see it as being anything special. Our fireworks show was supposed to be the pinnacle one in Ireland for years past and years to come and had a large budget. It didn't come close. It seemed a mish mash of fireworks sent up in no discernable pattern. It seemed amateurish to the fireworks connoisseur like myself hehe. Why they couldn't have had them launching off the nearby buildings is something I just don't understand.

Secondly RTE made me cringe and those around me cringe. Their "comedy" was awful! With that annoying cow saying "The real capital of Ireland, Cork!!!" every five minutes or so it really portrayed us as a city with an inferiority complex. The many high-larious jokes like the Alan Shortt one just made me feel like ducking my head. We just look a bunch of boggers from the RTE coverage!

The Spraoi thing.... myeh. Its arty and I don't really understand what it was about so I have no comparrison as to what it should have been. I did think the dragon was intended to go up and down the river but teh logistics of that would be tough.

All in all I don't think it was the best of starts to what has been billed as Cork's biggest year and a year when the nation will look at us for cultural inspiration. I so know I am going to be called a moaner but I just don't applaud mediocrity so I will make no apologies.

As a final note it does not come in to my top 3 fireworks displays that I have seen myself. Alton Towers wins that easily.

solice

i managed to get myself a good spot down by the bus station, the serpents head was right across from me and i could clearly see the fireworks coming from collins barracks and from below brian boru bridge. the speakers were only a stone throw away so i could hear the music clearly too.

I WAS IMPRESSED

but that is only cos of where i managed to get positioned. if i managed to have gotten a ticket i would have enjoyed it even more but such is life. i thought it was a great show and well worth the hassle of standing around for a few hours.

the one thing that annoyed me was the distribution of tickets, it was laughable! i was standing right behind the barrier into the ticket area and there was so much free space in there it was pathetic. they could have doubled the number of people in there and it wouldnt have made a difference. the position of the entry points into the ticket areas i thought was a joke as well. it prevented anyone in pana and emmet place from seeing anything that was going on. we walked straight passed them and was blessed to get a spot in the bus station.

as for those that think the show was not cultural. the serpent is a myth from cork legend! the music that was played represents culture from throughout the country and beyond, cork may well be the capital of culture but it is not all about cork culture, its culture from europe! "EUROPEAN capital of culture"

comet

I was dissappointed with it.
I watched it from in front of the stage on Patrick Street, a big mistake, saw very little, watched most of it on the screen. Fairly underwhelmed by it all, I imagine if I had been on the quay it would have been great. The bus station, patricks hill or somewhere like that would have been better options i'd say.

invincibleirish

i watched from near the opera house and i have to say i thought the fireworks were fantastic and the crowds there were great,there was a great vibe around the city thru out the day and it made me very proud to be from Cork.

iceman_2001_ie

I didn't watch the fireworks, live or on T.V., but I could hear them from Glanmire.

it is overshadowed by the severe chav/knacker/idiot culture of the city

Spot on.
Its a damn shame.

Cork does have loads to offer in terms of "nicer" culture though.

Theatres:
Triskel
C.A.T.
Granary
Firken Krane (sp?)
Opera House
Everyman

Venues:
Opera House
Everyman
City Hall
Savoy
- A host of good music bars, Lobby, Sin É, Spailpín etc etc

Galleries:
Crawford
Gluckmans
- there are about 3/4 other small ones who's names escape me -
- One by Crawford Hall, One on Carey's lane, the Electrical Engineering
- building in UCC etc etc


My cultural challange to everybody who reads this is to attend ONE event in every venue, theatre and gallery I mentioned above, over the course of the next twelve months. That's roughly one a month.
Instead of going to your local or a late bar some random Thursday, go to the Lobby or Sin É or somewhere where there will be live music.
Do this once a month as well.

I figure if we all do this, we'll be showing our support for the whole affair.

vector

iceman_2001_ie wrote:

Galleries:
... the Electrical Engineering
- building in UCC...

WTF is the story with that building. It is like a hotel, glass doors, paintings etc...

iceman_2001_ie

Prof. Yacamini treats it as such.

solice

ah come on! everyday i have to walk through the bloody doors and i am faced with "art"! the paintings that go up there are ridiculous, 500 yoyos for a collage of magazines! and it was sold! its not art that they put up, its crap!

iceman_2001_ie

solice wrote:

ah come on! everyday i have to walk through the bloody doors and i am faced with "art"! the paintings that go up there are ridiculous, 500 yoyos for a collage of magazines! and it was sold! its not art that they put up, its crap!

Generally, I agree.
Most of it is complete Pap.

But occasionally, there are one or two pieces which show real affort and real talent.
Only occasionally though.

Do what I always do, blame Jer Riordan.
Best Quote from Jer Riordan "Tell Bill to F*ck off and do it himself"
Funniest thing I've ever heard

This has gone completely off topic.
Back to comments on the Display of last Saturday...

Was the edited version on RTE last night any better than their coverage from last Saturday?
I caught about ten seconds of it - a few bangs and flashes of fireworks, and a close up of a 4 year old girl, who looked stoned.

simu

I didn't think it looked too bad on TV although they really should have gotten someone less brain-dead than Kathryn Thomas to do the commentary along with John Creedon.

They showed Creedon's 7 wonders of Cork afterwards last night - I really enjoyed that. It's a pity Cork doesn't get on TV more - Dublin gets its own soap opera and we get nothing. :mad:

solice

simu wrote:

I didn't think it looked too bad on TV although they really should have gotten someone less brain-dead than Kathryn Thomas to do the commentary along with John Creedon.

did u know that she is from Carlow?

as well the following day, all the papers had the pictures of the opening ceremony on page 3 or 4 but you can be sure if it was on in dublin they would all be on the front page

iceman_2001_ie

"Creedon's 7 wonders of Cork"

What were they?

The Number 3 bus route - Knocknaheeny to Mahon (or is that the 2? DaveIrl?)
The County Hall - the ugliest building in Ireland
UCC - The most corrupt institute of education in Ireland
The City Library - Smallest library in the world
XtraVision, MacCurtain St. - Where more money is owed in late charges than Ethiopia owes the world bank
HillBillies - Garlic E-coli in a bun
The Fountain - olympic swimming pool for the alcoholically challanged

Again, I digress.

Back to topic.....
How many people ACTUCALLY were at the event?
80,000 seems a little ambitious.
More like 12,000 and they all came in from Ballincollig.

simu

iceman_2001_ie wrote:

"Creedon's 7 wonders of Cork"

What were they?

The Number 3 bus route - Knocknaheeny to Mahon (or is that the 2? DaveIrl?)
The County Hall - the ugliest building in Ireland
UCC - The most corrupt institute of education in Ireland
The City Library - Smallest library in the world
XtraVision, MacCurtain St. - Where more money is owed in late charges than Ethiopia owes the world bank
HillBillies - Garlic E-coli in a bun
The Fountain - olympic swimming pool for the alcoholically challanged

Again, I digress.

Back to topic.....
How many people ACTUCALLY were at the event?
80,000 seems a little ambitious.
More like 12,000 and they all came in from Ballincollig.

Bitter are we?

Skud

The reason why the capital of culture is going to be crap is cause people are too busy and happily living in dublins shadow. As your man said on the commentary we haven't seen affects of the celtic tiger, now we have it ppl are complaining. Im sorry but patrick street;" oh look at state of it, it's not nice at all." Capital of culture, "oh waste of time look at it, it's a flop." Everything else... "We'd have a city full of knackers," "im not getting enough attention so lets rant about everything till someone else sorts it out..."

FFS cop on. The reason pat. street is done up is because of this capital of culture. If it hadn't have been you'd have something to complain about anyway. Nobody mentioned the €80 million development project down by conolly hall. The influx of more apparements (brand new) and more ppl and more wealth, business opertuinities and more jobs as a result. The reason we have so much knackers and belive me we don't, is because synical hyprocritical people complain about everything. The capital of culture "festivities" have only just started and already the bashing has begun. Well if you can't open your mind and approach this from an unbiased view(instead of the negative one)then of course it's going to be ****. These ppl, ppl like you are the reason why cork is such a "****hole" in your paradigm and until you wake up to that it'll always be. If you have such a problem leave and don't come on here, run your mouth and head anonymously home where you live in your perfect existence of complaining about stuff.

iceman_2001_ie

Re: Quoting Skud: open your mind

All tongue-in-cheek comments aside, you are absolutely right.
We Corkonians have such a sh!t city, with so little to do, that our greatest past-time is gossiping and complaining.
Refer to my post on page 1 about attending one event is the venues I listed, for a suggested mind opening exercise.

Re: My bitterness

No.
I've got a head-cold, and I get really, really sarcastic and nasty when I can't breath through my nose.

Blitzkrieger

Don't you listen to the news? The display was great and everybody loved it!

The dozen or so people who I spoke to who were actually there and said it was crap are only the exceptions that prove the rule and in no way indicative of outright lies by semi-state news organisations.

D-Generate

I like the new Patricks St and I am all for the "Capital of Culture" to work smoothly and go down well. However that doesn't mean I will applaud them for everything they do. If they do a good job I will praise them and if they do a shoddy job I will say so.

Pffft its because of people who don't bash something because its from Ireland/Cork when it deserves to, that the Frames are such a big band in Ireland.

nesf

D-Generate wrote:

I like the new Patricks St and I am all for the "Capital of Culture" to work smoothly and go down well. However that doesn't mean I will applaud them for everything they do. If they do a good job I will praise them and if they do a shoddy job I will say so.

Pffft its because of people who don't bash something because its from Ireland/Cork when it deserves to, that the Frames are such a big band in Ireland.

I agree, although the Frames aren't a bad band per sae.

Skud

I agree that if a bad thing comes you might bash it, whether you're right or not but it just seemed most ppl jumped on the bandwagon in this topic by saying it was crap. I was in the front row, and I'm not a fireworks nor extremely overwhemly cultured person, but i personally liked the opening ceremony. It was mostly hype maybe, but eveyone was expecting it to be a flop and it wasn't. I'm just saying they might surprise you still. There was more than 12000 there, 80000 did seem a bit optimistic tbh but there was no way of judging it. I came on here now expecting 10 ppl having layed into my first post. I'm not saying im right 100% but what I did say in general has truth in it.