Mogwai in Dublin just confirmed on radio show on Today FM. Three shows in March at the Academy on Middle Abbey Street. The weekend of 20-22, expect around €30 per ticket. Please note its a small enough venue about 500 capacity.
update: Official announcement. Tickets on sale Weds 4th Feb, 30 euros.
http://www.theacademydublin.com
http://www.ticketmaster.ie
Any dates outside Dublin? Or another tour-that's-not-a-tour?
7 comments:
I don't think i mentioned doing a tour anywhere. Slight case of misrepresentation of what i actually said. SB
You're right, Stuart, you did say 'shows'. I think it's reasonable to guess that 'shows' might have been interpreted as a tour? Yet again, Mogwai's fans in the UK and Ireland have been short-changed by decisions made by your agent.
It's obviously becoming the favoured touring model for the UK in some quarters - "why bother to go to them when we can get them to come to us".
This is clearly something that annoying you Rob but i have to object to how you are viewing this. Mogwai tour a lot, in fact quite a bit more than most bands who are in their fifteenth year of existence. Since we started touring last year we have played seven uk shows (Inverness, Glasgow, London QEH, Belfast, Edinburgh, Manchester and London Apollo). Of these shows the only one outside a major city was Inverness which also not entirely coincidental was one of the poorest attended concerts we have played in some time. If the record continues to do well there is a chance that we will play some cities that we have missed out in the UK but i really take umbrage with the suggestion that anyone is being short changed. We work very hard and spend a lot more time away on tour than i'd guess you or any of the readers of this blog would fancy doing. We play pretty much wherever we are asked if the offer is respectable and your suggestion that it is some sinister ploy by our agent couldn't be further from the mark. What could he conceivably gain from this plan? He'd make much more money if we did the tour Bloc Party are doing in October that you put up on the forum the other day. We probably would too but i can't imagine our shows in Hull, Dunfermline, Reading or Truro being particularly worthwhile. SB
Stuart
Thanks for your reply.
Most of Mogwai's peers have long fallen by the wayside, particularly in terms of touring, and it's a good thing that you're still around.
The amount of hard work you put into touring is evident to anyone fortunate enough to see Mogwai play live.
That said, the band is your job. I'm sure the touring side of it is pretty rough for most of the time you're away, but if it wasn't
massively rewarding in other ways, you'd have all packed in doing it a long time ago. You're right to say that I couldn't hack doing what you do, but I'm sure there are plenty of Mogwai's fans who have jobs/lives that you wouldn't much fancy. The 'hard life' stuff doesn't really wash, I'm afraid.
I'm interested in your comments on the Inverness show, particularly in the light of the your later comments about the Bloc Party tour. It appears (and I apologise if I've misinterpreted you) that you're suggesting that playing UK shows outside the major cities (for the purposes of this discussion,
those cities would be London, Manchester and Glasgow/Edinburgh) isn't something you find 'worthwhile'? If so, that's very disappointing to read. The
Inverness show may have been poorly attended but I'm sure there were a considerable number of people in the crowd who were pretty damn amazed and excited by what they heard and saw. On what basis do you consider playing in a particular city/town to be 'worthwhile'? The last time Mogwai played a UK tour of the length of the Bloc Party tour was 1998. I'm sure some of these places would welcome you with open arms.
My main issue with the Dublin shows is, as I said earlier, the "they'll come to us" impression it creates. Presumably there are decent 500-or-so capacity venues in Cork? Galway? And an opportunity there to play to many hundreds of people who've never been fortunate enough to see Mogwai play live. (I have no idea how booking a tour works for a band at Mogwai's level, and this may well be hopelessly naive).
The last five Mogwai shows I've seen have cost me somewhere in the region of £500 when the cost of tickets (for ATP and Supersonic, Mogwai being the main draw to
both of these for me), flights, hotels etc are added up. Please don't interpret this as me moaning about spending money to see Mogwai play live, merely citing my own experience to illustrate the position other may also find themselves in. The lack of UK shows outside London means that for me, and many others, being a Mogwai fan comes with a pretty hefty price tag, and now does not appear to be the time to be asking people to spend more than they need to on luxury purchases like attending gigs.
Rob, i would never be so arrogant to suggest that playing to small crowds is something we are in some way "above" but when we are committing to playing 100+ shows for every record we release then i have no qualms in admitting that taking a party of 12 to somewhere we can't even half fill a medium sized hall makes very little sense, especially as we are in a very lucky position of being able to play to people all over the world. I genuinely hope that this doesn't come across as me moaning about being someone who makes a living from playing music as believe me i think i am incredibly lucky to be in this position and i'm sure i can speak for the others when i say that. As far as the people from outside of Dublin who want to see us, i apologize that we aren't coming to your towns but had we been offered the chance we would have jumped at it. I can categorically state that we have not been approached to play in Ireland other than this offer of three shows in Dublin. If someone had an offer then we knew nothing about it and since our email address is on our website we really should have. I'm sorry to hear about how much coming to see us has cost you recently Rob but i could mention how much it has cost us to do numerous live trips over the years. But then again its our"job" isn't it......SB
Thanks Stuart.
I think I was right in my previous comment - "hopelessly naive". I didn't realise that booking tours was such a hands-off process. I've always assumed that tours were booked on the basis of wanting to play in particular places, rather than waiting for offers to come in. A big gap in my understanding of the process has been filled.
Hope the rest of the European shows go well. Thanks for posting the setlists on Twitter - saving me a stack of time!
Just to add, I think Rob's last post is key. Before, I thought (mogwai-sized) bands pretty much drew up a list of places they wanted to play and managed to work out a tour, but it obviously isn't quite that simple. It's a shame from the fans perspective that there isn't a 'full' UK tour on the cards, especially as it's been a while, and we appreciate that you don't want to play to half-filled venues, but I bet you also appreciate that it's awesome seeing your fav band in a local, intimate venue rather than travelling for a few hours to see them in an Academy.
Keep up the good work lads! And please dig out Stop Coming to My House and play it live a bit more!
jon
Post a Comment