My First Horslips Concert
The decade (1970-1980) – belonged to Horslips, as far as being the biggest home-based music group is concerned. Of course we also had Rory, Van and Thin Lizzy doing Ireland proud but the 'boys' were the first real super group to do it from home. That was the major difference.
My older brother bought "Happy To Meet...Sorry To Part" right after it came out and sufficient to say there was such a buzz on it that it wasn't long before half the village were beating a path to our door to have a listen to it. In those days not everyone in our village had their own record player but even if they had we had the additional advantage of being centrally located plus I used to hook the record player up to my band speaker cabinet for added volume. Who could compete with that other than the band themselves?
Speaking of the band themselves - both my younger brother's jaw and my own fairly dropped when we scanned the entertainment section of the local newspaper to check out who was playing where that weekend only to see Horslips billed for the Lough Ramor Ballroom (locally known as The Farmer's Ballroom). In fact we were so sure it was a printing error that we called the Anglo Celt office only to be told that it was in fact true - Horslips were going to play Virginia!
On the night in question we all donned our best gear (and there was some cool gear around in the early '70's, right?) and got down to the hall as early as we could. We didn’t want to miss a thing and we all staked out a place for ourselves right in front of the stage. One of the first things I can remember about that night is thinking to myself – boy, this is LOUD! It was great. We were in heaven. This was rock 'n' roll – and it was Irish. We were proud. I also remember about half way through the first song dust started to fall from the roof of the stage. I kid you not. I remember Charles looking up and it and smiling. They were literally bringing the house down.
I can no longer recall what the setlist was but I do remember we were all waiting for "Furniture". In case I haven’t mentioned it by now, this 'concert hall' was a dancing ballroom, so normally all the punters were either attempting to jive to the "Hucklebuck" or slow dance to whatever slow song was in the charts at that moment. Horslips broke that mould by having a large section of the audience come to see them for the music. They used to stand up front (or sit) and applaud after songs. Pioneering days indeed!
As soon as we heard the opening chords of "Furniture" I started dishing out candles so we could light them and wave them in the air. I'd seen that on TV someplace and wanted to put Virginia on the map as being one hip place. I guess the local bouncers had other ideas. They charged in (perhaps thinking they were protecting the dancing public behind us) and gathered up all the candles as quickly as they could. However, not before we got a wide grin and a nod of approval from Jim. It had been worth it after all - running the risk of getting ejected from our first ever Horslips concert just to be hip!
What else can I say? It was such a memorable night that it’s as clear in my mind’s eye today as if it was only yesterday.
Horslips - they came, they saw and they certainly conquered!
---BARRY MCCABE |
