Munster venues: Getting back in the groove at Mike the Pies, Cyprus Ave, and Connollys
Sam McNicholl, Eoin Aher, Aiden O’Connor.
Mike the Pies is basically a pub. The back half of the bar is a venue on gig nights and the front stays as a bar. It’s 100 capacity and an L-acoustics rig. “Famously when we had Fontaines DC here, the system we had in would have done the 3Arena, the walls and the windows were shaking,” says O’Connor.
I suppose the low point was the uncertainty. The funny thing about lockdown is Friday, the 13th of March, the night before we closed down - that was Friday the 13th, which was a bad enough sign - but we had China Crisis supposed to play here that night. Like what a name for a band to be playing here the night before a crisis came from China! I suppose over the last few years, it's always been the uncertainty of what's around the corner; we didn't know and we'd get our hopes up and then they'd be knocked again.
The first thing we did maybe from music point of view, I saw a few fellas starting to do things online, just sitting at home, playing whatever, and I rang a local fella, Jimmy Quinn, who would've played here doing covers. And I said, ‘Do you fancy doing a gig in the bar, just me and you? You bring in your speakers. I'll go live on Facebook and we'll see what kind of reaction we get?’ He said, ‘I'd love to, I haven't sang in four months.’ So then when I rang O'Sullivan Sounds, Kevin who I hire the PA off, I said to him what I'm gonna do and he said, ‘C'mere look, we'll send over the PA, we'll send over Cookie - Cookie's our sound engineer - the PA's sitting in my warehouse, it's doing nothing.’
So then a local fella, Dinny Carroll came down, he connected his iPhone basically to the desk, and we just streamed a gig one night and it got incredible reaction - local reaction as in people from the Listowel area were putting in messages saying, 'Oh, this is Mary Buckley living in Washington, DC', any chance he'd play Fields of Athenry especially for my mum and dad in Listowel?' And all these kinds of things. And it was brilliant. We did that 12 weeks in a row, July and August of 2020. No one got paid because I obviously was making nothing from it. It was only about getting people out of the house and keeping ourselves sane.
The low point was the whole thing that we just didn't know, what was the future for our business. It got so frustrating when you were constantly cancelling the gigs and rescheduling them and, between venues and bookers and agents and the bands themselves. It was frustrating times. At the end of the day Mike the Pies is a pub, and we've always said it's a pub first. And that's why, bands will contact me and they'll say, 'Oh, can we rent out your room on Tuesday, November 12, or something. I don't do anything like that - Tuesday or Wednesday night, there'd be Champions League on and I've got to look after my regulars.
We wouldn't have survived without the grants, the grants from the government first and then the LPSS (Live Performance Support Scheme) grants. We got a few of those grants, and I was able to buy some of our PA and I've a whole new lighting system that I didn't have before.
I suppose we're hoping but we have to be sensible about it as well. We don't want to go back to it and things seem to be going in the right direction - a lot of the world aren't vaccinated yet, so we're in a good position. If we were told, whatever it was, six or seven weeks ago, if you close at eight o'clock for the next four or five weeks, we'll let you open fully, we wouldn't have believed it. Whether the eight o'clock thing worked or not, we'll never know, but I don't think anybody expected us to open fully there two weeks ago. But the other thing I must mention is the second grant, the second LPSS grant that we got, had to be an outdoor gig, we weren't allowed do indoors that time. We did 11 or 12 gigs upstairs, out on the flat roof of the pub.
So my uncle who ran the pub for my dad had a bit of a garden out there years ago. I got engineers in to make sure it was structurally alright, and stuff. And so we got a small marquee and we had the bands on the left hand side, and there was 25 max capacity. Sure each band, bearing in mind I put on a support band, nearly every gig. I just felt rather than giving one band all the money that we were allocated I'd rather give some to the support as well. So they were taking up four or five places, then the bands were bringing a few friends, but look, it was brilliant. People coming upstairs in the pub. We made sure they were all done for half nine at night. The Frank & Walters actually did two gigs because I was going, How am I only going to sell 25 tickets for the Franks?’ So they did an acoustic gig first. Then a different 25 came in for the electric gig. It's a long time since the Franks played to 25 people. But it was brilliant.
I've got only three gigs in February. I have Soda Blonde Friday night, Silverbacks and Bullet Girl on Saturday night and I've Jack O'Rourke on the 24th. I didn't overbook February because obviously we didn't know what was going on. But I have a lot in March, including the Frank & Walters.
“We have a 150-capacity indoor venue and we also have a new covered outdoor venue that can comfortably accommodate another 150 people. The soundsystems in both areas were custom-made in West Cork by Toby Hatchett - his stuff is incredible.”
There were so many highs and lows over the last two years. We unfortunately actually had a licensing issue in 2019 that meant we had to cancel five months of shows that year, so when March 2020 rolled around and we had to cancel the entire summer's listings again it was like deja vu. Those first months of the unknown were probably the scariest. We quickly adapted in summer 2020 and began doing gigs with limited capacity and the restaurant part of the business. It was a wild ride to say the least.
It was tough at times but character building at the same time. We adapted at every turn and managed to change the business at the same time.
We recorded lots of live videos of bands here over the last two years and it was an amazing experience. Running a film production is such a different environment to running a live gig. Connolly’s is quite regularly used as a filming location; I'm definitely excited to film more in the space.
Joining the Live Venue Collective has been a real positive of the last two years, feeling not alone in the struggle with the business and to be able to receive guidance and help from some great people. We built a new outdoor area at the back of the venue in 2021 which was something that we had wanted to do for years. The lockdown forced our hand but it’s been something that gave us great direction and vision. I'm really proud of it. It felt like a great use of time with all the lockdowns that were in place.
Short term we are going to get back to putting gigs on, we are very excited for some full-capacity shows. Long term I would love to see more daytime/all ages events in the space as well and lots more delicious pizza and bread. I do also have dreams to do a larger event somewhere in West Cork eventually.
Sam Amidon - 4/3/22
The Scratch - 5/3/22
Kynsy - 11/3/22
Cyprus Avenue has been in existence since 2003 and underwent extensive renovations in 2018 to the tune of €4m, including a state-of-the-art lighting and L’acoustics soundsystem. The new and improved Cyprus Avenue was hitting its stride and was only running a mere 15 months when the pandemic struck. Winthrop Avenue - 80 capacity Cyprus Avenue - 500 standing/250 seated / or a 250-cap reduced-capacity standing room. Old Oak - 750 cap 115 Café & Wine Bar - 100 cap 110 people employed over the four venues.
The initial first month or so of lockdown there was an air of optimism throughout the industry believe it or not, and acts were pushing their shows back until summer. Towards the end of summer 2020, things opened up a little & we started toying with the idea of doing limited capacity shows, then the “circuit breaker” lockdown of October and the sudden rise of the Alpha variant was a real kick in the teeth.
That third lockdown from December 2020-June 2021 was probably the hardest to take mentally. We had all done what was asked of us but somehow we ended up in a worse position than we were initially due to the new variant. Gone were the days of pleasant summer 2km radius walks and in the dead of winter you simply didn’t want to leave the house. From a business standpoint, the owner Ger Kiely deserves great credit. In the 18 months of the venue being closed, nobody lost their jobs. The business and all of us had to pivot in order to stay afloat.
With music and entertainment taken away, we concentrated on food and generating as much income as we could to survive. I returned to a kitchen for the first time in 18 years and helped develop a menu that could be churned out efficiently by a ragtag kitchen brigade comprising existing kitchen staff, bar staff, security, and a live music booker! We quickly realised we had ample space to do several hundred covers a day and drive things forward and make the best out of the hand we were dealt.
It gave us lots of time to consider ways in how we could improve the venue even further in the future and service existing equipment as you don’t have a lot of time for that when you’re running full tilt. There are further phases of development we were able to look at and commence work on, including an outdoor rooftop beer garden and stage addition to Cyprus Avenue which will open later in the year.
Also, we are currently installing over 120 sq m of solar panels on our rooftop spaces.This will actually make us carbon negative during daylight hours across the four venues and surplus electrical supply generated will go back into the ESB grid, powering neighbouring premises.
We’re both excited and nervous reopening, to be honest. It’s great to be back and see people at shows again. There have been lots of twists and turns in this pandemic but hopefully the worst is behind us.
In the short term, acts are only starting to get back doing what they love and playing for a live audience. There are still backlogs of rescheduled tours since 2020 filling venue calendars but also some fantastic new and exciting acts coming through for people to discover.
European tour schedules are still going to be affected over the coming months as countries emerge from varying levels of restrictions at different rates, but overall with a successful vaccination programme, we’re in a good place.
2023 will see a full return to international touring calendars, many of which are already being planned now.
April 6: Bob Vylan
April 17: James Vincent McMorrow
October 5:Therapy?
- DeBarra's of Clonakilty, Dolan's Limerick, and St Luke’s in Cork
