Wacky memories of 1988’s big star
This part of the world has gone gaga entirely for Ed Sheeran. The man is playing a few concerts in Cork over the next couple of days, but you’d swear ’twas the Pope or Mother Theresa herself was performing, such is the pandemonium.
Signs have been erected all along the Cork-Macroom road warning motorists to expect traffic delays.
Traffic delays on the Cork- Macroom road! The Cork-Macroom road has for the past 10 years been nothing but one long traffic delay. The signs would be better utilised warning us about the potholes.
Anyhow, while Sheeran himself I’m sure might have his moments, he’s nothing in comparison to the man who rocked Cork exactly 30 years ago. I’m telling you, when Michael Jackson hit Cork in ’88, we knew greatness had arrived.
I remember it well, for I arrived late to the concert on account of being busy getting my hair cut. Back then, I had loads of hair. More hair than I knew what to do with.
I had hair on the top of my head, hair on the bottom of my head. The barber used to complain that I got fierce value for money, on account of every cut being like the first cut. And I would laugh, for I knew whatever he managed to sweep away would grow back almost as soon as I left his chair. Alas, it’s not the same story today.
Anyway, looking beyond my balding head and back to the summer of ’88, my lateness mattered little, for Wacko himself was as late as be damned.
But we forgave him instantly when Wacko’s first words (if I recall correctly) to the people of Ireland were “Up the farmers!” The place erupted, for ’twas full of farmers on that evening, taking a break from the silage.
Soon he was singing songs and moonwalking like the devil himself. Wacko was as mad as a hatter, as you well know, and he was a class of a farmer too. His Neverland ranch was populated with baboons and monkeys of every description.
Anyhow, after about an hour, a big sweat came over him, and he let out a squeal to know if anyone there had a request for a song.
I tell you no word of a lie, this fellow about 10 feet away from me with a bit of drink on board shouts “Sing the Bold Thady Quill!”
Wacko, ever the professional, launched into it, and followed it up with ‘An Poc ar Buile.’ Sean O’Se would hardly have sung it better than Wacko did in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on that memorable August night.
Before finishing the concert, Wacko once again mentioned the farmers, saying “Farmers need all the support they can get by way of EU subsidies.” And how right he was. Wacko had his finger on the pulse.
It didn’t end there, for didn’t he himself stand by the exit door to Páirc Uí Chaoimh after the concert, and shook the hand of every person leaving the venue.
It was like the old days of the dancehalls. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up. “Thank you for coming,” says he, “and mind yourself now.” And if he knew you were a farmer at all, in the hand would go, and out would come a wad of notes. Wacko was generous to a fault, ’twas this class of behaviour that ruined him in the finish.
Today’s ‘pop stars’ like Ed Sheeran are too bland and boring for my liking. I prefer the old days of Wacko. Days when insanity was never too far from the surface. Days when it was almost impossible to separate pop fact from pop fiction.
