The Blarney Stone – Second Life’s “Grand Old Lady” of Live Music
Most people who have been on the grid as long as we three have will have heard of The Blarney Stone either in passing at other clubs or in its formerly regular appearance in the SL top lists before ‘The Lab’ decided to go all cool and hip and stuff it full of EDM and 80’s clubs, seriously Linden Lab, what’s going on with the dest guide?! You should hire us three to take care of it, won’t cost ya anything but a Homestead for us rent-free! *coughs*…anyway, where was I? ohhhh that’s right, The Blarney Stone…
Not many clubs can say they have been on the go for a decade, and even fewer can say they have been around for 15 years, but when it comes to The Blarney Stone and the fact its been on the grid for eighteen years, yeah…their slogan of “The oldest live music venue on the grid” just isn’t there for show, they are the oldest on the grid.
Live music venues have been closing at a shocking rate in Second Life over the past year, a lot of it has been driven by the fact that a good number of them are owned, or partly owned by people in the UK, and with the rising cost of living, some places simply couldn’t afford to keep going due to costs rising in that club owner’s RL. For the Blarney Stone, it’s another storm it is weathering in its eighteen years on the grid. From the heady days of “bus tour” live show events in the early 2010’s, into the more semi-organized live music tours and events of the 2020’s, Blarney Stone has stood like a lighthouse on a battered rock, signaling that live music in SL may have it’s up and down’s, but it, along with Blarney Stone, will always be around.
Blarney Stone in its current form takes the shape of what many would consider a ‘working mans’ traditional pub, in other words, warm wood shades, comfy seats and a big stage at the far end where the drunk folks can throw bottles at the performers…oh wait, that’s in my local in RL, not the Blarney Stone.
The pub itself sits slightly off center of the Dublin Region in SL which has been its home for a very, very long time.
They have regular DJ’s who mostly cover the opening and closing hours of the day for the Blarney Stone as they are not a 24/7 coverage bar. The real reason Blarney Stone got its name though is due to the live musicians who perform on that well-worn stage at the end of the bar.
The three of us stumbled on Blarney Stone in the previous blog fashion post because Lizzy remembered the place and decided we should pay a visit. There were no events on at the time when we arrived, but we still took blog pics for the fashion entry anyway, it even got featured on the LL news blog.
When it comes to live performances, The Blarney Stone is one of the few, or possibly even the only, live music venue which has at least 4 live performers up on stage, one after another for 1-hour sets during the peak UK/Ireland times of around 7pm till 12 midnight GMT practically every day, barring major holidays of course.
These singers range from pop/rock cover singers, all the way to sounds leaning closer to bluegrass and folk music and everything in between. The sheer range of live performers and the music they sing is what has made sure that the Blarney Stone has managed to weather the numerous crises that SL has thrown at it over almost two decades of operation.
The Blarney Stone is one of those rare gems of a venue where you can spend the entire evening at it, even if you do not like the music genre that the current artist is singing, you still have a lot of listeners dancing and chatting away within the pub itself and other live performers taking the stage at the top of almost every hour from 7pm GMT till 12 midnight and sometimes earlier or later.
If you are into live music, you probably know about the Blarney Stone already. If however, you are just starting to dip your toe into the live music scene of Second Life, then this place should be at the top of your must-visit list.
Written by Liza ‘Lizzy’ Blackwood
Edited by Liandra Aries
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