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Trinity College Dublin College Green front view
Trinity College Dublin front gate and Campanile (bw)
Dublin TCD statue and campanile (bw)
Dublin Trinity College front square Campanile and big sky
Dublin Trinity College trees and lawns front square
Dublin University Trinity College Dublin front square lawn
Memories of U2 and the Dublin music scene in the late 1970s Written by Aidan O'Rourke2006-08-09 My earliest memory of U2 is from 1978 when they played at a 24 hour music festival at the Project Arts Centre, which had recently opened in what's now known as the Temple Bar district. The performance wasn't very polished, but the band had lots of energy. Read my review, based on memories from 28 years previously.A new band named U2 had appeared on Dublin's music scene. I first saw them at the Project Arts Centre duing 1978. They stormed onto a very high stage - I seem to remember staring at lead singer Paul Hewson's pointed cowboy boots - and delivered a frenetic and bewildering set. They had something, though I wasn't quite sure what. The youthful lead singer with his ruddy cheeks, unfashionable medium length hair and tight trousers pranced around the stage yelling into the microphone. The vocals were haphazard - frequently out of tune and croaking in the upper registers. Each of the band members seemed to be pushing the pace of the music. In the following year, U2 would go on to carve out a respectable following on the Dublin music scene. They often did lunchtime concerts at Trinity College, where I was a modern languages undergruate (1976 - 1981). At that time I'd taken to carrying a portable tape recorder around with me - the precursor of the walkman or boombox - and taped a lunchtime concert they did on the cricket field. I have since lost the tape recorder but I still have the tape. The sound is barely containable, the vocals still croaky in the upper registers, but there was an unmistakable energy there that just needed some channeling. U2 up through the floorboards U2 had common origins with the Virgin Prunes. I had also witnessed their concerts, recording the sound with my portable tape recorder, so that I knew their entire set by heart. In some respects I preferred them to U2 as they were very edgy and experimental. Having seen the Virgin Prunes live several times and familiarised myself with their material, I had strong views about them. One day in the post office near Essex Street, not far from Trinity, I saw their lead singer Gavin Friday in his characteristic pale raincoat and white face powder. I seized the chance to talk to him and after introducing myself, I gave a full and frank appraisal of the music. He seemed to appreciate my interest and nodded attentively. I was also acquainted with the Virgin Prunes bassist Dik, brother of the Edge. During 1979, Dik lived in the room directly below mine, 28.2.2. Trinity College, overlooking Front Square. I often used to hear the latest U2 and Virgin Prunes demo tapes coming up through the floor. I chatted to Dik a few times and occasionally went downstairs for a cup of tea and a chat. He also appreciated my interest in the Virgin Prunes. He told me a lot about U2 and Bono, including the fact that the song 'I will follow' was about Bono's mother: "Most people think it's a song about a girl but actually it's about his mammy!". In bed at night, listening on headphones plugged into my portable tape recorder, I used to listen to Dave Fanning's show on the fm pirate station Radio Dublin. The reception was hissy, but the music was great. He often played demo tapes by U2 and other bands. That was my third year at Trinity. My second year at Trinity College - from October 1977 to June 1978 was an exciting and formative time. Punk rock had brought new waves to the Dublin music scene, which was stagnant when I arrived from Manchester in late 1976. Two years later, seemingly everyone seemed to be going to gigs and was in a band, either a real or supposed one. The late Bill Graham Irish music journalist An influential contact that time was the Irish music journalist Bill Graham. I often used to bump into him at various gigs, always dressed in a scruffy polo neck sweater, clutching a note pad and a packet of 20 Silk Cut cigarettes. Bill would enthuse about the lowliest and most obscure of Dublin bands as if he was giving a lecture on Jean Paul Sartre or W B Yeats. He had a genuine and passionate interest in music and local musicians. I was gratified to have him as a friend. He would talk to me, stare at me with those wide, probing eyes set in a wide face, and listen intently to what I had to say about various bands. Bill Graham is credited as being an early champion of U2. He introduced them to their manager Paul McGuinness and so helped to make rock history. Bill Graham went on to write many influential articles on music and other subjects for the Irish music magazine Hot Press. I was very sad to learn of his untimely death. He gave me confidence and inspiration which remain with me to this day. Playing as one of 'The Sinners' At this time I was experimenting with songwriting and played in a band. We did some Buzzcocks covers, plus a few of my embryonic songwriting attempts. The bass player was Fergus Nolan, a guy who seemed permanently half-asleep. Perhaps that had something to do with his smoking habits. I was on vocals and lead guitar. Two guys from north Dublin were on rhythm guitar and drums. The drummer's name was Bernard, I can't remember the guitarist's name. We rehearsed in a ground floor room opposite the church on Westland Row, hence the name, chosen by Fergus, 'The Sinners'. We played a total of about three or four gigs, one of them at the Magnet Pearse Street - Bill Graham came to see us - another in a rough club in the town of Banbridge north of the border. Our biggest and final gig was supporting the Buzzcocks at a venue I've forgotten the name of on Mary Street, off O'Connell Street on the north side of the river. It was some time in 1979. Just before our final song, Fergus broke a bass string and I had to somehow keep the audience entertained until he returned with a new string, though the bass was badly out of tune. With the last song finished, I jumped back into the audience for the Buzzcocks gig, which was very enjoyable. Playing with the Sinners was not the most satisfying creative experience, though it was good to spend time with people from outside the hallowed walls of Trinity. To be honest, I didn't have too much in common with them, but they were good guys and I wouldn't have met them if it wasn't for the vibrant music scene in Dublin at that time. We once advertised for a lead singer, as I felt my vocals weren't good enough. The ad mentioned Bowie as a musical influence, and a Bowie lookalike with crazed eyes - and from the town of Monasterevin - turned up at our meeting place, Bewleys on Grafton Street. Despite a bad hair colour and an even worse complexion we invited him to sing. Unfortunately we couldn't keep the Bowie lookalike in the band for the simple reason that he couldn't keep time and couldn't sing in tune. In 1979 an opportunity to join a more successful band came up. One of the bands I regularly used to go and see was the Vipers, founded by singer songwriter Paul Boyle. I knew all their songs by heart, so when I auditioned to be bassist, they offered me the job on the spot. But I had a dilemma. Should I throw up my university degree - funded by a full grant from my home town, the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport - and go swanning off to London to seek fame and fortune with one of the most promising bands on the Dublin music scene, or should I stay at Trinity and finish my degree? I decided to stay. How I nearly joined 'The Vipers' The Vipers took on another bassist and I continued to enjoy their gigs and had no regrets. Then they went to London and I tuned into their session on John Peel's radio programme. To think that could have been me helping to record it at the BBC studios in London. But then they disappeared and I never heard anything about them again. Around six months later, in 1979, I bumped into the drummer on Griffith Avenue in north Dublin. The band had gone to London to seek fame and fortune on the music scene there, but things had not gone well. The band eventually split up and the various members returned to Dublin separately. It seemed making it in the music business was a very dodgy and unpredictable affair. So many bands and artists desperately wanted to make it, yet so few of them ever did. DC Nien, Some Kind of Wonderful, U2, and from Cork, Micro Disney. I enjoyed all of them and got to know their sets very well, but which one of them was going to make it, if any? One of the places I rehearsed with the Sinners was a room in a run down Georgian terraced house on the south east corner of Parnell Square, north of the river. I was friendly with the guy who ran the rehearsal room - John Breen (thanks to Peter Breen for contacting me Nov 07 to remind me of his name). He was bright and had some very definite ideas about bands he thought were going to make it. He rated a new British band very highly 'The Police' and thought they'd go far. Another band he was keen on was one who also practiced in his rehearsal room. The name of that band was U2. I said I'd heard a lot of their stuff and thought they were very talented, but, and these are the 'famous last words' I tell everyone - I didn't think the lead singer was good enough for them to make it big. They had some good songs, but he was very shaky in the upper register, and I reckoned that sadly they would find it difficult to get a recording contract. John Breen thought differently, predicting they would be very successful. The rest is history. From September 1979 to August 1980 I was in Berlin on my year abroad, and lost all contact with the Dublin music scene. By the time I was back, U2 were well on the way to success. They had secured a recording contract in early 1980. I had their first album 'Boy' on tape, in addition to earlier versions of the songs recorded off air from Radio Dublin. It was about this time I used to visit Dik in the room underneath me. Very early one Sunday morning in around April 1981 I went out on my very first photographic expedition. I had with me an Olympus Trip which my friend Kieran Sheridan had kindly lent me. I walked down from Trinity into the then undeveloped Docklands area by the Rver Liffey. In my head was the album 'Boy', the track 'In the Eyes of a Child' and the glowing, golden sound of the Edge's guitar which became fused with the sunrise over the Dublin docks and reflected on the side of the Liverpool ferry which had just arrived. It seemed like a new era had dawned, the U2 era. This is just a brief summary of my early U2 Dublin memories, many of which lie forgotten in my latent memory banks. Here are some of my other Irish music highlights:
Regrets U2 changed the way the world thought about Irish music. I'm glad that what is now my most vivid musical memory is the one of U2 playing the Project Arts Centre in 1978, and also three years later, taking photographs of the Dublin cityscape to a mental backdrop of U2's music. This was a groundbreaking, though not especially happy time for me. I had frustrated creative ambitions, and wasn't lucky enough to find others who could help me achieve them. Musically I wanted to do something bigger, broader, more all encompassing than traditional rock music. The fact is that U2 went on to do what I would like to have done. And what if they'd needed a bass player, auditioned me and invited me to join? Would I have turned them down to finish my degree? I have one regret, and that is that I wasn't taking photos of bands. At the time I wanted to be up there, playing the music myself, not on the sidelines. In any case there seemed to be very few people around me with a camera, still fewer taking photos at gigs. If I had been capturing my experiences on film, I would now have a prime collection, both from the Dublin scene and from the equally vibrant music scene in Manchester, my home city. But there's no point in going on about regrets. My early U2 Dublin music memories will stay with me always, and I can at least share them here. If anyone can provide the names of people or venues mentioned in this account, or have any corrections, comments or additions, please contact. Thanks to Matt McGee for spurring me on to write this account.
Responses to Early U2 Dublin memories" Aidan loved your site, brings back lot of memories, Dublin in the late 70s music-wise was a great place to be.
Thanks very much for your great comments - they brought that time back to me as well. I was there when the Damned played McGonagles! I think I was probably drinking flat Harp lager! Very best wishes! Sean Kenny
Dave
Bernard Walsh
Wow its great to hear from you, and as it turns out, Bernard has a site with his stills photography from various films, and the RTE soap opera Bachelors Walk. Go to http://www.albumen.net europhile
bitzy
The Strougers? My memory must be failing me but I dont remember that name. I remember the Dandelion Market. The Ivy Rooms on Parnell Street? Any connection with the rehearsal room on Parnell Square? Yes, I remember the Damed at McGonagles, with the white faced lead singer prancing around from stage to speakers. Also remember the trek out to Dun Laoghaire to see The Jam - I would never have remembered the name the Top Hat. I saw the Prunes at McGonagles and also at a venue on Stephens Green, not Dandelion Market, but a big hall on the south side. Well, I wasnt very enthusiastic about U2 in the early days! The Count Bishops - another name that has almost disappeared from my memory. I remember the Clash in the Exam Hall quite clearly. I was standing quite near the band at the top. I was standing very close to Joe Strummer. Damn, if only Id been taking photos then. I just wish I could turn back the clock! Thanks very much for contacting. bitzy
Thanks very much, I will contact Gary. It was a great time, but Im not sure if I would like to relive all of it.
europhile
Peter Breen
Hi Aidan
Great site. I was one of them punk rockers in that time. The Dando market, hangin outside Advance Records South William Street. That band the Strougers I remember the lead singer wore a pair of teddy boy shoes. There was the band Sidefx. Rocky was the bass player. The band the Threat the lead singer was Morris. The Damned played McGonagles as the Doomed. Drinking cider in the green. Way back in the day in a simplier time..r.i.p Lenny who we lost at Slane Castle 1984.
2006-08-09 e |
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Seeing the Clash play in the TCD exam Hall in 1978, where I later did my final examinations
