Friday, October 29, 2010

Joe Rooney at Hurlers Bar

I heard of this gig from a friend who also does MMPT and thought it would be a great opportunity to discover Limericks upcoming comedians headlined by the comedic legend himself, Joe Rooney.

Joe Rooney has some great experience in the Irish comedy industry. He featured in Channel 4’s Father Ted as Father Damien Lennon (“Damo”) who appeared more as a Football lunatic than a priest. He also stars in RTE’s Killinaskully as 48 year old Timmy Higgins, portrayed as Pat Shorts side-kick who spends most of his time in the pub and still believes in Santa. Joe currently does the narration voice for TV3’s “Young, Dumb and Living off Mum”.
On the night of the gig we made our way from Elm Park in the lashing rain to Hurlers Bar, thankfully which was only five minutes away. Once we arrived we entered the bar noticing that the place was empty, not even a stage! But to our delight the gig was taking place out back, a different area of the bar for gigs of all kinds… phew!

Tickets were only five euro! I thought this was very student friendly considering that many other comedy gigs of this type have cost ten or fifteen euro in the city in the past. And considering the quality of comedy that was on show the whole of Limerick City should have come along! We had our tickets booked at the door so we got in with ease. We found ourselves a table that was not too close to the stage… the acts always tend to work a lot of their material on the front row with mocking and such. At the bar there were three taps for Carlsberg… and they said they had none, heartbroken I was! So I settled with a pint of Guinness.

After the venue filled up totally (60/75 people) the gig started, which was introduced by the fantastic host Finbarr. He did an excellent job with warming up the crowd for the support acts and took the stage with great energy. The first act’s name was Ben. Personally I thought he had a great set but unfortunately it went down poorly to the crowd, perhaps they hadn’t drunk enough?

Other support acts included Billy Anderson, Tommy Anderson and Derek Nolan. Derek himself organised the event and got all the acts together. It’s interesting as he does stand-up comedy too. He did a great job on stage and really got the crowd laughing despite his uncontrollable nervous state (His hands were shaking like crazy!)

And finally, after enduring the rain and having a Guinness or two, Joe Rooney took to the stage. I was slightly star struck as I always enjoyed watching on television. He opened up with a David Bowie impersonation on guitar, saying what it would be like to have David Bowie as a father… he then continued the same joke to Bono. His comedic excellence had the crowd in tears with laughter as he claimed a drunken girl in the front as “Badger Lady”, that’s what you get as a spectator for heckling! Overall the night was a fantastic success which left everyone happy. There was a really high standard of comedy and I can’t wait until the next comedy gig takes place there.

Event Link: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=718943270#!/event.php?eid=157445677621992

Joe Rooney’s Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/joerooney

Kevin O’Brien (10112197)

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