Poor UB40.
The announcement Ali Campbell and company would be bringing the group’s pop-reggae stylings to Dundee was greeted with more raised eyebrows that actual excitement in many quarters.
Tickets for the band’s May appearance are still available, despite being on sale for a number of weeks.
Tickets for Little Mix’s concert, however, sold out within minutes although fans willing to pay at least twice their face value can still, if they so desire, pick them up on resale websites.
Now, I’m not a fan of either act but it would be extremely churlish to say these concerts are anything but a good thing for Dundee.
Slessor Gardens is an amazing space in the city centre and has already been used successfully for public events, such as The People’s Arch project last year.
There is palpable excitement that an act as big as Little Mix will be performing at open-air gig in the heart of the city. This is something entirely new for Dundee and has to be welcomed.
But there is always a “but”, and this time it is the logistics of staging these events.
The major drawback of Slessor Gardens is that is surrounded by busy roads and the gates will open for Little Mix at 5pm. It’s hard to see how rush-hour traffic will be able to flow as normal when concerts are on.
During last year’s Christmas Lights Night extravaganza it took one motorist — possibly the one writing this very column — 45 minutes to get from Tesco Riverside to the Tay Road Bridge after being diverted around town.
Of course, that’s no reason for the concerts not to go ahead but it’s odd that details remain so vague. Neither Dundee City Council nor the promoters seem keen to say how the event will be run or even how many tickets have been sold.
At any rate, the likelihood is thousands of people will be descending on the city centre at rush hour and allowances will have to be made for that.
This, of course, is not the oddest thing to happen at the Waterfront this week.
The city council decided to best way to stop people parking in a lay-by in front of the V&A and Discovery Point was to seal the area off with bollards — trapping two vehicles, including one hearse with a skeleton behind the steering wheel.
Parking may be illegal but surely another way of preventing cars from using it could have been found rather than bollards. Could the cars not have been ticketed? Or perhaps a “No Parking” sign or double yellow lines might have done the trick.
Instead, a series of ugly looking bollards have been cemented into place.
If they remain in situ, they will be first thing visitors to Dundee see when leaving the railway station, which is not exactly the first impression the city is aiming to make on visitors.
