`You need that crossover appeal that will attract a wide audience, and The Verve certainly have it in songs like Bittersweet Symphony and Lucky Man. I went to The Point to see them in concert and was deeply impressed." Henry Mount Charles is aiming to attract 50,000 to this year's concert in Slane.
Back in 1981, at the first Slane concert, which featured Thin Lizzy and U2, there was an audience of 18,000: "You need a hell of a lot more than that today, otherwise we'd all be bankrupt." The biggest attendance for Slane was in 1985, when Bruce Springsteen attracted a crowd of 100,000.
"The costs of putting on a show are huge," he notes, reluctant to be specific. "But on the basis of ticket sales, this year's concert will be a profitable venture." The money will be ploughed straight into Slane Castle, which he estimates will be ready to re-open, after the disastrous fire of 1991, next year. He has been running a nightclub there since 1992: "Once a building is empty it becomes lifeless."
He describes the process of restoring the 18th-century castle as "tricky": "The fire revealed pervasive dry rot. It has also been inordinately expensive." The figure of £2 million has been mentioned: "Each phase - and we're now in phase three, about to go into phase four - has run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, and I've received no Government assistance. "This", he laughs at his own pun, "has burnt a large hole in my pocket".
The damaged area has been reroofed, a lot of internal structural work has been completed, and the plasterwork has been repaired. The remainder of the work is largely painting and redecorating. Although Beauparc House, where he now lives, was extensively refurbished in the 1980s and was fully insured, the castle was not in the same up-to-date condition, nor was it insured at the time of the fire. The irony is not lost on him as he ruefully recalls how, almost simultaneously, he ran into trouble as a Lloyd's "name": "I was deeply exposed to the Lloyd's insurance market. I was financially very rocky for a while. I had no idea that I'd be faced by the kinds of risks I was underwriting in Lloyd's."
On a more positive note, Lloyd's is now generating "substantial profits" which are helping to rebuild the castle. He is also aware that he was lucky to have escaped with his life: "Although we were living in Beauparc House, we had been spending some nights in the castle. If we had been sleeping there that night, I wouldn't be talking to you now. My bedroom no longer exists." He prefers not to comment on the causes of the fire.
About two years ago the previous government offered him £70,000 for a feasibility study to restore the castle as part of the Integrated Boyne Development Plan: "This would have been money for a bunch of consultants, not for the castle. I said `what do you think I`ve been doing since the fire?' I had to carry out immediate emergency remedial work." Scaffolding was erected under the ballroom ceiling almost immediately in an effort to save its unique plasterwork.
As if all that wasn't enough, since 1995 he has not been able to hold concerts at Slane because of wrangling with the planning laws: "Eamonn McCann, Dermot Desmond and I have been in and out of the courts, spending tens of thousands of pounds," he says wearily. "A licensing system needs to be introduced for outdoor events. Planning permission is designed for things like residential housing and factories. It is a very cumbersome process to deal with temporary structures. At Slane, a city of rock and roll is brought in and dismantled 10 days later."
He notes that planning laws have not been invoked in all cases: "I'd like to see how the IFA would react to the National Ploughing Championships needing planning permission. 100,000 people attend and there is never a squeak of protest."
Planning permission from An Bord Pleanala for one concert a year at Slane until 2002 was granted in June, at "the 11th hour", says Mountcharles. It was preceded by an appeal by the Slane Householders' Association last December, which cited concerns about the effects of the concert on the village and its residents.
At the time Lord Mount Charles was sure his chances of receiving planning permission on foot of such an objection were slim. Now that permission has been given, he is happy to fulfill the 11 conditions involved. An environmental monitoring plan and a management plan have been filed with the local authorities: "I haven't got a problem with regulations. For the 1995 Oasis and REM concert we acted as if regulations were in place even when they weren't. After every concert we go through everything that happened and discuss how to improve the event. We plan every aspect, including gardai, civic defence, sanitation and river rescue [in 1987 a youth drowned at the David Bowie concert]."
Lessons have been learned over the years, such as it is inadvisable to hold the concert on a Sunday. When Bob Dylan played at Slane on a Sunday in 1984, riots broke out in the village the night before the concert: "The problem arose because 10,000 people arrived in the village the night before. There was under-policing on the Saturday night because we were focusing on the Sunday. No-one understood that the situation was going to blow."
In spite of local resistance to the concerts, he notes that "a householder poll taken during the 1980s showed over 90 per cent support for the concerts. There have always been some people opposed to the concerts and we are working towards ensuring that the impact is positive rather than negative." So what are the positive elements involved?
"There are economic benefits to the area, also the fact that the concerts lift the profile of Slane. People have a good time at a major cultural event. Some of them even fly in from the US."
As for next year's concert: "We are already focusing on 1999, because under the terms of the planning permission for Slane, we have to have chosen the date by December 31st. This really means that we have to have chosen the act by then too, to make sure that the date can be integrated into touring schedules. It makes everything very tricky. You can't really select a date without having a deal, otherwise everyone gets very jumpy."
Given his significant record of sang froid during the challenges and disasters he has already survived, however, one can't really imagine Lord Mount Charles losing his cool: "I wouldn't do this if I didn't love it," he concludes.
