CONTROVERSIAL rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry demanded a groupie at one of Ireland’s earliest ever folk festivals — and got one — despite being told: “We’ve no call girls in Sligo.”
The Johnny B. Goode star was a veteran of 50 when the Boys of Ballisodare organisers broke the bank to lure him in 1981.
The desperation to shell out on a superstar who didn’t really fit the bill was typical of the early Irish festivals — which were eventually derailed by money, rivalry and tragedy.
As attendances grew and competition between organisers heated up, festivals began looking outside of Ireland for their headline acts.
This development convinced Philip Flynn to shell out $17,000 on the ageing American rocker.
Philip said: “Just the idea of Chuck Berry, with Johnny B. Goode and, you know, like . . . Jesus! We decided to go for it.”
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Getting the fading star to a field in Sligo was a drama in itself, before he put on a rocking show.
Berry — derided a “cheapskate” and “not a very nice man” by organisers — demanded two first-class airline tickets, for him and his daughter, and cashed in her ticket when she didn’t make the trip.
Flynn dispatched his dad-in-law to a bank to withdraw $10,000 in cash to hand over to Chuck as he disembarked at Dublin Airport.
And it didn’t end there.
Berry wanted a groupie, and was willing to wait in the Mercedes which was provided for him.
Flynn said: “(Berry’s minder) came to me, and this was a Sunday evening, and said, ‘Chuck would like some company’.
“I’m standing there saying, ‘You know where we are . . . even if it was possible . . . we don’t have call girls in Sligo’.
“We know, as the country is a small place, where the car went and it came back an hour later.
“I mean, that’s a fact. And so somebody got what they needed. Who knows what happened?”
The pioneering events in the Seventies helped transform Ireland’s concert scene, but by the early Eighties they had run aground in the face of fierce competition.
For five years festivals run by people with big dreams and tiny budgets dominated until a different kind of event took over the live entertainment calendar.
“I’m standing there saying, ‘You know where we are . . . even if it was possible . . . we don’t have call girls in Sligo’.”
Philip Flynn
Rory Gallagher played to 20,000 fans in tiny Macroom, Co Cork, in 1977 — a rock festival event set up by locals to help save the town from the economic brink.
‘NOBODY HAD DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS’
Festival historian Roz Crowley said: “Nobody had done anything like this in Ireland. I mean, there was no template or anything for it.
“A lot of people came from Cork, of course, and slept in doorways — they couldn’t afford anything with the price of it.
“A lot of people had to walk because they didn’t have a car and they couldn’t afford the bus fare.
“And they walked for the best part of eight hours to get to the concert in pretty poor footwear.
“So the poor things arrived into Macroom a bit bedraggled.
“So much so that the locals who saw them arriving looking exhausted put on batches of scones and came out to their gates and fed them glasses of milk and a scone to take them into the town.”
‘EARLY INNOCENCE QUICKLY LOST’
The festival was a huge success, but like others which were being put on all over Ireland, the early innocence was quickly lost and it came to an end a few years later.
Roz explained: “A different element crept in. I would say that maybe they weren’t all music lovers, you know.
“And then, as time went on, managers recognised that, my gosh, this is a kind of a cash cow.
“‘We could be charging more here for our artists’, and it became a different business really.
“And it probably killed it in the end.”
Boys of Ballisodare founders Philip and Kevin Flynn saw their folk acts — including Christy Moore — tempted elsewhere.
FEES BEGAN TO SPIRAL
Major festivals sprang up in Lisdoonvarna in Co Clare, Carnsore in Co Wexford and Castlebar in Co Mayo.
The fees — which had started out at a few hundred pounds at the Sligo event — began to spiral as rival promoters lured in the big name acts.
Philip said: “Lisdoonvarna, when they came on the scene, they were paying IR£600 for the same acts that we were paying IR£200 for.
“They had no idea. They just needed to get in. Whereas I had come to it from a relationship with the acts, at least.
“The parents of one of, I think, Jim Shannon, put up their farm as collateral for bank loans. And they lost money the first year.
“In fairness to them, I have great admiration for the fact that they stuck with it. They came back.
“So they did actually make profit after that and did well for a few years.”
TRAGIC ENDINGS
Early Irish festivals were tinged with tragedy — the first at a punk event in Dublin’s UCD in 1977.
The Radiators From Space were topping the bill in Belfield, where a young man was stabbed to death.
Radiators star Pete Holidai said: “We weren’t involved in the actual stabbing incidents — what happened was a scuffle broke out early on in the night.
“There were a couple of band members who were in, trying to break the scuffle up and get people to calm down.
“But unbeknown to us some fellow stepped in and stabbed someone and then f**ked off.
“No one realised what had happened and it wasn’t until we were on stage later in the evening where we suddenly became aware.
“What happened was that the ambulances were called and it appeared then this guy had died.”
A young man was later convicted of killing 18-year-old Patrick Coultry, from Cabra in Dublin.
The biggest of Ireland’s earliest festivals was Lisdoonvarna, which came to a tragic end in 1983.
HELLS ANGELS DRAFTED IN
The event was moved to the end of July to capitalise on the August bank holiday, with Rory Gallagher and Van Morrison topping the bill.
A staggering 40,000 people attended, but a huge number turned up without tickets and tried to breach the fence.
As a result, Hells Angels bikers were drafted in to lend a hand with security.
Separately, eight people drowned while swimming on the hot Sunday afternoon of July 31.
The dead, all men aged between 19 and 30, included three brothers from Co Carlow.
‘PART OF US DIED THAT DAY’
Stockton’s Wing guitarist Mike Hanrahan remembers: “I was there and it was dark.
“There was a bad vibe at the festival all weekend because of the security.
“We saw the big fencing being knocked over. It was a bad energy at the festival.
“And to cap it all off the young people who lost their lives on the Sunday, to drown in a part of Doolin that we all know.
“It was like part of us died that day as well.
“I remember somebody saying that was the day the music died. I guess that was the beginning of the end of those festivals as well.”
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