There is nothing like an Irish summer concert under filthy skies while fat raindrops explode in your pint in such a volume as to keep it topped up.Last Sunday’s show by David Byrne in St Anne’s Park, Raheny was a wet one (as mentioned by Frank McNally in a diary during the week). The rain had more or less held off for the day, saving itself for the hours when it had everyone trapped in an open field. Several hundred punters crowded under the only available tree, but even it became overwhelmed so that its leaves released great globs of rainwater, aimed squarely at any unprotected pints. At the bars, water poured from the roof while staff served from behind a mini-waterfall. Much of the crowd sported thin, emergency-bought ponchos that stuck to their clothes like cling film. Judging by the age profile in attendance, many will have long experience of such musically accompanied saturation. So, despite the conditions everyone brought a jolly determination to power through and enjoy what was an excellent show – no matter that they’d later need to cut the jeans from their legs.For this was the annual tradition of watching at least one summer gig from beneath a sodden hood. You buy the tickets in the darkest days of December as something to look forward to. You imagine sunglasses, shorts and a sunset to rival the pyrotechnics on stage. Except you get to June and find that rather than leaving the winter behind, it has instead run on ahead and is there to greet you with a downpour.[ David Byrne at St Anne’s Park review: For Burning Down the House the sodden field becomes a communal jigOpens in new window ]Thinking back to other similarly damp gigs I’ve attended, it seems to me that a musician has two basic options when dealing with an Irish monsoon. Byrne chose route one: don’t mention the weather at all. Heavy rain might be tickling the ears and running down the backs of everyone in the field, but let’s push on and make a sunny occasion of it.He could instead have gone with option two: acknowledge that everyone looked like they had waded through the sea to get here.A couple of years ago Bruce Springsteen began his set at a drenched Páirc Uí Chaoimh with a version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Who’ll Stop the Rain and ended it with A Rainy Night in Soho while literally leaning into the conditions as if challenging the skies to a duel he was always confident of winning.There was Madonna at Slane in August 2004, where she ended up performing under an umbrella. The glitz was incongruous with the weather. From the distance of the back of the hill, the carefully staged and choreographed show looked like it might as well have been taking place on the back of a lorry at a saturated local festival. It was Madonna’s only outdoor concert of that tour. I’m not sure she’s ventured outside since.Every gig-goer will have had such experiences. Some will be veterans of the Oxegen Festival quagmire of 2009, an event that could already have been generously described as “rough and ready” even in the most benign conditions. There was the Electric Picnic mudfest of 2022 where tents that had been pitched on grass on Friday were islands in a lake by Sunday. When a reporter tells you that “rain did not dampen the spirits of revellers”, they’ve likely not taken account of the mood that comes from slopping through boot-sucking mud at the base of overflowing urinals.Anyway, back to St Anne’s Park where, as David Byrne’s show was ending, and the crowd was bouncing, the rain produced a spectacular encore. It poured. It hammered down. It bucketed. As we left, water ran down the paths into dark pools that set ankle-deep traps. I thought back to how the Talking Heads legend had had a minor coughing fit during one song. Byrne is 74 years old and spry, but what if he’s not used to this weather? We’ve faced it before (yesterday) and will face it again (tomorrow). But by God, we’d never forgive ourselves if we laid David Byrne low for the sake of a few watery pints and a summer singalong in a field.Some who went to his show also pitched up at Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Malahide Castle on Wednesday night. I was among them and had dressed prepared for rain. But the weather was the reverse of Sunday’s, with the torrential showers passing by the time Cave and band took the stage.The skies cleared for a beautiful evening and a stunning show. Cave finished with A Rainy Night In Soho as a tribute to Shane MacGowan. It had, though, been a lovely, mild night. Good for the drying, in fact