It's a big week ahead for concerts, with the first at Marlay Park in Dublin tonight. Seán MacConnell takes a dim view

At the end of the last of the July concerts in Marlay Park, Rathfarnham, close to where I live, the gardaí ran out of blue and white tape to cordon off a long stretch of road opposite the front gate of the Park.

They substituted the ordinary tape with "Garda Crime Scene" tape. This was as good as it gets, considering the crimes being committed against good music, the local wildlife and the decent citizens of this sleepy area.

Not wishing to become the local Victor Meldrew of Marlay, or even raising the issue of whether or not a public utility should be used for private profit, I want to describe what it's like to be an unwilling host to some of the world's worst bands and their fans.

For us, the concerts just don't happen on the nights that the denim- clad city and country descends on one of the most beautiful settings in this country, to frighten the wildlife and bombard the Three Rock Mountain with electronic sounds.

The first warning we get (most of us being of the age that we tend to forget what happened a year ago), is a letter from Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Council containing resident car passes for the season. These pieces of paper are sent to allow us access to our own homes. They are sort of like the passes black people used to get in South Africa during the apartheid years, when there were "White Only" designated zones.

When we have digested the fact that we are into concert-land again, the council proceeds to close the most beautiful part of the park, the gallop in front of the elegant house, to cordon it off in advance for the events.

Burly security men are placed at the front gate, most of them wearing leather jackets and little beards, to drive off little old ladies, men on zimmer frames and families, while the crime scene is being prepared.

The riggers then come and build a stage. This goes on for several days and even nights, but that is fine until the PA boffins come along testing sonorously "one-two-three" from 11 o' clock in the day.

So now you are locked out of your local park, the place looks like a military base in Iraq and the PA is booming.Then the guards come along and put steel barriers in front of your estate, which will be manned on concert nights. The scene is set.

At this stage most of the bird life in the park has fled. The small birds leave, the rooks take off for elsewhere, I don't know what happens the squirrels, but the deer who live on the flank of the Two and Three Rock and Tibradden mountains leave and start mating far too early in the season out beyond near Johnny Fox's pub.

The local pubs throw out all the furniture to make more space, round up the price of drink and substitute plastic containers for proper glasses. I understand that at this stage in proceedings the local clergymen go on holiday.

We all go out and buy candles, as there is sure to be a power-cut either before, during or after the concerts because so much electricity is used during the gigs that when some bands strike up, I see the lights in the Pigeon House go dim.

As for the "crime" itself, let me tell you that there is a man called David Gray who is termed a songwriter and singer. He was on in the park for two nights some years ago and he sent the entire area into a state of depression from which, I think, I have not yet fully recovered.

I have listened to Van Morrison delivering his act. It was a sour set, like five-day old milk in galvanised bucket.

I swear that during one of the concerts involving a crowd called REM, a perfectly innocent pigeon flew into the wall of sound and dropped dead in my back garden. At the time I was comforting a neighbour's dog who was having a nervous breakdown.

I have to say that these concerts are well-policed and they are not responsible for the lack of toilets or the impact of urine on garden flowers and shrubs, but how in the name of God did they allow a crowd called UB40 not only into Ireland but into Marlay Park? You are not reading rubbish here because I am someone who has heard both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones play live, sang along with the Beach Boys and visited five Ray Charles live gigs.

I recently heard Bono and U2 play live on the north side while I sat in my garden in Rathfarnham. The wind was right, but the music was juvenile.

And UB40, I would not hire them to play at my daughter's wedding. In fact I would ban them from handling instruments at all.

As for Oasis, don't get me started. We had them in July and they created a virtual musical desert around this place. They did damn all work and let the crowd, who had taken over my local pub, do most of the singing.

Now our zimmer frames are hung up for a few weeks as we await the arrival of more musical bandits including a gang called Basement Jaxx, who are on tomorrow night.

I, for one, have had enough of the three-chord-trick men who leave no turn unstoned.

So by way of appeal to the local council: put an extra penny on the rates and send back the rent to the organisers, take the Garda checkpoints off the front of our estates and let the bands find a new home on a privately owned ground like Leopardstown racecourse or even Croke Park.

The Chemical Brothers play Marlay Park tonight. Get your groove on, Seán.