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SINGER GARTH BROOKS has spoken of his willingness to meet with Enda Kenny to find a resolution to the ongoing controversy over his cancelled concerts at Croke Park.
“If the Prime Minister himself wants to talk to me, I will crawl, swim, I will fly over there this weekend, sit in front of him, I will drop on my knees and beg for those 400,000 people to have fun”, he said in a press conference this evening.
Brooks emphasised that his cancelled Croke Park events can only be reinstated by a solution found in Ireland.
He added that he was not interested in playing any fewer than the five gigs because he does not want to disappoint those with tickets to the two cancelled ones.
However, he said he was hugely disappointed not to be playing the Dublin events:
Anyone in Ireland, anyone on the planet who is sad about this, you’re not one-billionth as sad about this as I am.
Brooks also spoke of being taken aback by the objections to the concerts, saying: ”In no time in there ever, when the 400, 000 tickets were announced, did people say ‘no way’.”
“Ireland – I don’t have a clue. [In] January I went over for press, I had the greatest time, I was treated like a king – I have never been treated as anything less than a king by the Ireland or its people.”
Brooks said his team was blindsided by the refused licences:
We’ve passed every one of the safety tests – up until two weeks ago there was nothing but love. And then there came, ‘hey Garth, we’re ok with three of them’… I wish I could tell you I saw it coming, I never did.
Resolution
On the issue of going ahead with the three permitted concerts, Brooks said that the “powers that could fix this aren’t here”:
It’s just kind of put on my side – and the statement was ‘Garth, with a simple ‘yes’, you could make 240,000 people happy’, and my statement back was ‘with a simple ‘yes’, you could make 400,000 people happy’.
He criticised the timing of the refused licences and cancellations. He said that if the Irish system for organising events needs to be ‘fixed’, then that should be done after allowing the events which have already sold tickets.
“Let the concerts go ahead and then work on not letting it happen again,” he urged.
The western singer said he was stunned to discover the level of interest in his gigs when tickets first went on sale, and his team’s efforts to redress problems reported by his Limerick fans in buying tickets in advance of the shows originally announced:
And because of one on-sale, in Limerick, the system went horribly wrong for them… We said if we’re doing another on-sale we’ve got to take care of Limerick.
Responding to questions from the floor, Brooks spoke with affection of his experiences of Ireland and Irish people, insisting: ”Ireland should never be embarrassed, its people should never be embarrassed”.
Earlier today, it emerged that the residents of Croke Park are willing to seek ”a new direction” in resolving the concert cancellations.
New record deal
Speaking ahead of Brooks’ appearance at the press conference, Sony CEO Doug Morris said he was pleased to announce a record deal between Brooks and Sony.
Listing the awards and accolades Brooks has received over the course of his career, Morris noted: “He is…the only solo artist to have six albums sell over 10 million copies.”
Brooks retired from touring in 2001, but indicated late last year that he was planning a world tour in 2014. The Croke Park gigs at the end of July were expected to act as the launch of Brooks’ wider touring plans. The announcement about which city will host the start of his new world tour will be made on 14 July, he said at this evening’s press conference.
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The air corps operate PC-9 aircraft, not “PT-9 aircrafts”
@Y U no spell good?: plus it’s Corps – nor Corp
They were used quite extensively during World War 1 I’m led to believe. Of course that was before they became solar powered.
@Awkward Seal: But once moving , they can revert to wind power .
@Ken Hayden:
As long as they’re flying downwind…
Pathetic. Finland with a comparable economy and population size to ours have 54 x F18 Hornets super sonic jet fighters as their main Air Defence capability and are (like us non aligned). We have 7 (yes just 7) PC 9 piston engine basic training aircraft. As our main Air Defence capability.
@Mick Jordan: Finland’s Neighbour is a little less benign than Teresa May….
@Mick Jordan: If Ireland went off and bought a few jets Paul Murphy would have a field day. I’d rather defend our country with biscuit tins than listen to that muppet again.
@Mick Jordan: A. They have Russia (who has attacked them before) on their doorstep. B. Enlighten us on how you figure the PC9 has a piston engine?
@Mick Jordan: 54 hornets isn’t much of a deterrent to the Russian airforce, however I take your point, we don’t need an air core really.
@Mick Jordan: F18 Hornets have a unit price of $70.5 million new. How many do you want us to buy?
@Chemical Brothers: if your talking about ww2 your going to have to give Germany a mention , Russia’s the big bad wolf these days they didn’t help beat Germany , they didn’t battle the brown lads , there just commis , we have the uk on our doorstep who invaded us before , don’t bloody forget
@Mick Jordan: we dont have, and dont claim to have, an air defense capability. Having said that we do have sam sites on key buildings in main city centres. Take a close look at liberty hall in dublin next time you’re there
@Keith Fay: Sam sites in Dublin city centre ?? You’re talking through your tin foil hat.
@Mick Jordan: they’re turbine engines but I get your point
@An bhearna: i read it in an irish air corps book, pictures in there too
@Keith Fay: they may deploy portable air defence options when there is a significant security risk e.g. EU council meetings but there are no permanent air defence installations in Dublin city
@Mick Jordan: Take a look at the size of the Finnish Airspace, and compare it to Irish Airspace
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: My point is that a country with approx the same size population and similar size economy to ours can afford to have a decent sized military as well as a much higher standard of living for the ordinary populace than we do. We should learn from them how they manage it, because our lot most certainly can’t.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: we have a much greater fiscal space, we can’t control that either
turboprops- jet engines with props on the end…not pistons to be fair
@Mick Jordan: So you’d like 54 multimillion jets lying idle in Baldonnell ? Just to satisfy your juvenile envy ? Finland is next to Russia in case you didn’t notice. And how do you think they can afford it. ? High taxes. But you’d be first to bitch about that too.
@Paul Mc Nulty: If the High taxes were being spent to give us a far superior standard of living then there would be very little bitching as you put it. But as it is we already have some of the highest Income tax rates in the EU and very little to show for them.
What’s in that stuff, will Goldfinger and his team raid the banks when we’re all out cold?
Are the Irish air corp cape able of shooting down a aircraft??
@Conor O’Neill: 2 x Rocket Pods – Holding x 2.75” (70mm) ‘FN LAU 7’ Folding Fin Aerial Rockets
2 x .5” FN HMG – Each gun with a 250 round belt
@Conor O’Neill: that can be done from the ground with a handheld device
@Conor O’Neill: only someone like batman is cape able.
@Conor O’Neill: Yeah they are but they’d have to try catch up with them first, which would never happen.
@Conor O’Neill: Yes they have the RAFs phone number
@Conor O’Neill: No. We don’t have an air force that would do that type of thing. We have and air corps attached to the army who’s primary role is flight training, transport and fishery protection. In the 70′s the US offered us free F4 phantoms and the means to take care of them, we said no unfortunately. We still have a fighter squadron that exists on paper that was very modern during ww2, at that time we operated hawker hurricanes and others i can’t remember but today …. no air force.
Imagine the hassle of trying to use the DART if you are a wheelchair user this weekend in Bray
Just travel while the air show is on, sounds as though you’d have the train to yourself. Not saying that any wheelchair user has an easy time of it in Ireland. I know they don’t. I’ve heard tourists getting upset and frustrated by the lack of promised facilities. People don’t want extra help, they want basic aids so they can get around by themselves. I wish wheelchair users could take that much for granted.
What time?
@Jason Kilroy: 11am, literally says it in the first paragraph.
@Mark L: Literally ?
@Boganity: literally
ˈlɪt(ə)rəli/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
“the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout”
synonyms: verbatim, word for word, line for line, letter for letter, to the letter.
informal
used for emphasis while not being literally true.
“I have received literally thousands of letters”
@Mark L: This was added later, I looked at the article first at about 6.45… Articles do get edited sometime..,
@Boganity: Numerically
Typical. You wait all year for an air show and then two come along at the same time.
Sacred Heart – what next
If they call that ‘flying up the liffey’, I’m glad we’ve no plans to invade anyone at the moment
@Robert Gormley: How do they spare the petrol?
Was that it? Flew past with no real trail of smoke once! Are they coming back? That’s not really much of a treat now to be fair!
What a display of flying skill. If you blinked you missed it. A total joke. I ve seen more impressive flying displays in Stephen’s Green.
Time for an upgrade think a few f 35s are for sale on some deal
@P: Easily hacked as well costs 100 million each with a 50 million per jet to fix… So 150 million each then?
There’s some extremely amateur footage of it on my Twitter for anyone that missed it: https://twitter.com/RikMon23/status/887977997076238337
Hope it keeps fine for them, understand they are not too good in bad weather.
Total waste of taxpayers money, for a glorified ministerial air taxi service.
Scrap it & re- assign the funds to our navy, with heli pad vessels, & expanded fleet.
We already have to contract in our air emergency service, so what purpose does it serve?
No jets, they just call the RAF up for that lol.
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