The campaign to demolish McGanns starts here!!!!!(I'm personaly going to buy the site domain Http//:www.McGanns.ie and rubbish it on the net before they get it.)
O.K this is a memorial page to "An Phoenix and not a slate McGanns page so I'll calm down.
So "An Phoenix" what can I say about it. The toilets stank and rarely worked. They leaked on top of who ever was sitting under them downstairs. Upstairs was usualy filty. The chairs upstairs were extremly uncomfortable and you ran the risk of being gerroted every time ya sat down. Basically it was every shithole you ever walked into but God we all loved it. Downstairs had it's homely rustic setting which was comforting even to non drinkers like myself. Upstairs was a myrad of graffeti with sublime to often ridiculous messages daubed across the white walls. Every band that played there seemed to write on the walls in a seminal tribute to the place. Out of all the barmen/promoters I've ever dealt with Damien the latest Manager was the nicest bloke of the lot. It was the place where most bands in Cork City ourselves included started off. "An Pheonix" was in essence the spirit of Hardcore as the gigs were organised by the kids for the kids with little or no interferance from the staff. It was also the one place in Cork that allowed moshing and crowd surfing (although that wasn't the case two years ago- Shoutouts and apologys to Martin the Bouncer the disiplinarian to what was just our excess teenage energy. Hope you're good man) and where basicaly the most energetic and fun gigs were played.
On a personal note "An Phoenix" held a lot of good memorys for me. My first gig played and watched. My first crowd surf and the first meetings with what are now my best friends took place within its battered walls.(choke Im getting all emotional) Needless to say I miss it and get a tear in my eye every time I pass McGanns and see the new decor. So different but the building still looks so familiar. I'll try to get some pics of it for this page if I can dig some up if not the black and white crowd pics in the live pics section were taken(Along with a few others) in "An Phoenix".
"The Phoenix Crew We WILL rise again"-Joe Collerhan.
Shoutouts and respect to the following; Damien, Doug, Joe, Permy, Connor, Jane, Bjorn, Eoin, The C.H.U.M.P co-op and all others who helped organise all the gigs in "An Phoenix" and to all the bands both local and overseas who played there for giving us the great memorys.