The greatest grunge gig in Irish history
For anyone lucky enough to be living in Ireland’s Dún Laoghaire area in the early 1990s, you would have enjoyed the surreal opportunity to catch a future grunge heavyweight just as they were about to explode.
The little seaside resort in southeast County Dublin belied its rock heritage. First opened to an orchestral event in 1953, the Top Hat Ballroom between Longford Place and the Old Dunleary Road soon became a key venue of the emerging punk and new wave, moving from the traditional showband groups in favour of The Clash, The Jam, and The Damned taking its stage, as well as homegrown talent The Vipers, Virgin Prunes, and an early U2 years before world conquering success.
Across the 1980s, everybody from Slayer to The Human League boasted dates at the Top Hat, but it’s the venue’s final major gig that’s proved most notable. Riding high off the underground success of Goo, Sonic Youth embarked on a ten-date tour of Europe across August and September 1991, including a show at that year’s Reading Festival as the penultimate headliner on the Friday behind Iggy Pop. They’d never been bigger, helping bridge the gap between alternative and the mainstream along with Pixies for the new decade.
Swinging by Ireland, Sonic Youth made a live stop at Sir Henry’s in Cork, before playing their Top Hat show on August 21st – boasting four support acts for just £8, the DGC presented night included The Donnelly Brothers, Dublin indie punks Mexican Pets, and alternative rock outfit Power of Dreams, and paying before Sonic Youth was a little-known Seattle band called Nirvana.
They weren’t exactly unheards. 1989’s Bleach had done the rounds in the Seattle underground, and the ‘Sliver’ single was enjoying respectable college radio rotation. Such a ‘love buzz’ was already swelling around Nirvana to beckon major label interest from DGC, who’d recently snapped up Sonic Youth to issue their Goo breakthrough, and were happy to pour big bucks into expanding Nirvana’s budget for album number two.
But for anyone who managed to catch their set, it would have been special – not only were Sonic Youth in the midst of something of a creative purple patch, but Nirvana were just on the cusp of spearheading the whole grunge movement.
The timing couldn’t have been more razor-edge. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was less than a month away, but the video was already in the can, awaiting its MTV promo and unaware of just how seismic the track would ring out across the rock world.
Among their setlist, numerous future anthems were belted before studio tracks were out to launch Nevermind to the top of the Billboard 200, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Come as You Are’ alongside album cuts like ‘Drain You’ and the eerie ‘Something in the Way’. By the time they returned to Ireland in June 1992, Nirvana was playing a sold-out 8,000 arena headliner in Dublin’s Point Theatre, boasting Teenage Fanclub and The Breeders as support.
Despite such an illustrious night, Sonic Youth and Nirvana’s grunge takeover of Dún Laoghaire’s famed venue would stand as one of its last shows, the much-loved Top Hat Ballroom closing soon after.
