When the history of Irish pop is written there will be one defining feature of what it meant to the "cool" last Saturday. Seeing The Bee Gees in concert rather than going to Slane. Whether you were an original, tear-induced-by-Massachusetts fan from the 60s, a jive talker from the 70s or a neo-dancing queen, male or female, from the 90s. Either way, the RDS that night sure was, well, groovy.
As for The Bee Gees themselves, they had the capacity crowd not just eating out of their hands but singing out of their heads by kicking off the gig with pristine pop songs such as I've Gotta Get A Message To You. When that was followed by Ronan Keating's appearance performing Words along with Barry Gibb, the waves of pleasure that rippled through the RDS were positively orgasmic.
"I hope you say they were brilliant!" shrieked one woman when she saw me taking notes. But were the Brothers Gibb brilliant? Their teeth were. And, yes, watching the show it was next to impossible to freeze out memories of Kenny Everret's wonderful parody of The Bee Gees where he wore over-sized teeth, a chest toupee and took helium to hit the high notes. Happily, there was no sign of helium on stage, though Barry still sounds half-strangulated as he sings the perfectly titled More Like A Woman.
Far more satisfying, musically, were the acapella sections in songs like New York Mining Disaster 1941. Here, the harmonies were simply, chillingly beautiful. Even so, when The Bee Gees sing about a mining disaster they do make it seem like a picnic. Likewise, Tragedy comes out sounding like "Party-time." That's the problem with the group. Their singing, though technically sublime is relatively superficial, even soul-less. The same could be said of this gig, if it wasn't for the edgy, aching emotionalism in Robin Gibb's voice during his powerful solo slots.
So, overall, though the RDS was a "cool" place to be, Saturday Night Fever, sadly, it was not.