Rock’s poster boys play a blinder

Hey, it can’t get better this. The World Cup has kicked off, The Marquee is in full swing, Cork hurlers have a mouth-watering Munster semi-final clash with Clare tomorrow at Semple Stadium and The Coronas are in town..... classssssssss.

All this was just the injection of adrenalin Cork needed. And what a buzz the poster boys of Irish rock and indie delivered. The atmosphere at lunchtime yesterday for their sound check was special enough but inside The Marquee last night was as good as the closing minutes in a fever pitch All-Ireland final, with former Dublin minor Danny O’Reilly, playing a blinder.

With a power-packed set, which included their brilliant new single ‘All The Others’, O’Reilly and the boys almost lifted the pegs in the tent in the first of the ‘cooler’ gigs at a venue which already hosted Cliff Richard and Dolly Parton.

All day, the build-up to their third-year-in-a-row Marquee gig lit up the airwaves and Twitter but when the lights lit up the stage at 9pm and they launched into Different Ending, Anything Else, and ... well it was lift off time.

They were brilliant last year but they upped the ante big-time last night, helped by excellent support act — Irish rock band, The Riptide Movement. They provided a perfect starter, and could easily have been the main course, delivering, as they did, an awesome, mouth-watering set.

But once 9pm came, on a hot and sticky night in Cork, it was all The Coronas and man was the place hopping. The connection the band has made with Ireland’s mostly 20/30/40/50-somethings over the last few years is something magical. This is no sit down and listen gig and the audience took on a fifth band member role, singing every song and giving it welly.

It seems things just can’t get any better for Danny, Conor Egan, Graham Knox, and Dave McPhillips. But it will. Right now it seems their bubble is never going to burst.