Saw Doctors prove there’s life left in the old dog yet!

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

The sands of time have dulled the memory as to precisely when was the first time to see the Saw Doctors live – but the band’s hiatus of recent years led to fears among fans that they might have seen them for the last time too.

Then just as it looked like they might fade away came the vinyl re-release of If This is Rock ‘n’ Roll, I Want My Old Job Back – and 30 years on from the original, they were back on top of the album charts.

Proving that time hadn’t diminished their standing, and the fan base had remained as committed as ever – further illustrated by the fact that the upcoming UK tour sold out in minutes and could have done it several times all over again.

Sometimes you forget that the lads, like the rest of us, aren’t the spring chickens they used to be – although they did a good impression of fellas determined to defy the years in Campbell’s Tavern last Friday night.

And even if future live appearances may be thinner on the ground than they were in the past, their second barnstorming show in a fortnight only went to prove that what’s rare is truly wonderful.

They weren’t just back on stage; they were as good as, if not better than, ever – two and a half hours of raw emotion; anthem after anthem sung by the band and fans alike, leaving everyone reeling from the sheer frenetic energy of the whole thing.

The Tav made it seem like a night in their own front room, a stage familiar to the Docs from their earliest days – and it was a privilege to see them up close in a venue they could have sold out ten times over.

It was sweaty, intense and played at full tilt from the first note to a unique snatch of the national anthem at the end – in other words, a Saw Doctors gig, the likes of which we thought we might never see again.

Ostensibly this was a warm-up for that short, sold-out UK tour – but if they get any hotter than this, we won’t have to worry about spiralling fuel prices; these boys will heat the whole country on their own.

You only have to look at the set list to known that this would be a night to remember; from the opening Exhilarating Sadness into the beautiful Red Cortina, on through the sporting anthems, To Win Just Once and Maroon and White Forever – on a night that the Galway minors won the All-Ireland – hitting the high spots around Clare Island and the Red and Green of Mayo, as the night built to a crescendo along the N17.

And no one, not for one minute, thought that was the end; Davy back on stage modelling an old FCA beret indicated what was coming next, and yet they were only ramping it up for I Useta Lover and a showstopping conclusion with the Hay Rap morphing into the theme from the Sunday Game, aided by a blast of the national anthem that might be best described as the Docs’ nod to Jimi Hendrix and the Star-Spangled Banner!

You honestly had to be there to see the energy coming off the stage – and coming right back at them like a game of musical tennis.

The line-up was terrific too; Davy Carton and Leo Moran joined by Anto Thistlethwaite on sax, Rickie O’Neill on drums, Will Merrigan on bass and Kieran Duddy on keyboards – and by Noelie McDonnell of the Whileaways, only bringing a new dimension to the sound, while at the same time looking like he’d been there all along.

You had to remember that it is over 30 years since the release of If This is Rock and Roll, I want My Old Job Back way back in 1991 – and yet it sounds as fresh now as it did then.

Even in their heyday, the Saw Doctors divided opinion – loved by fans and sneered at by elements of the musical elite. Not that it ever bothered them, because they knew they were loved by the only ones who mattered.

And those fans were all over the world; a truck driver from Newcastle-on-Tyne showed up in Campbell’s on Friday – he didn’t bring the truck – pleading for a ticket to see the band he has taken his annual holidays to follow on tours across the UK and the US.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see them play the Albert Hall in London when John O’Mahony and a few of the All-Ireland-winning Galway side of 2001 came on stage with the Sam Maguire; I’ve stood behind six foot four Niall Quinn dancing with five foot nine Richard Dunwoody – two of their biggest (and smallest) fans in Manchester; I even made it onto the stage at Top of the Pops when they sang Small Bit of Love despite having the presence of a jiving bull in a china shop.

And I’d honestly thought that we might not see them again, because the longer the break went on, the harder it was going to be to get back into the groove.

How wrong I was – and how delighted I am to admit it.

They hit that spot as though they’d never even taken a break, although the truth is it might have done them, as they might put it themselves, the world of good; they were renewed, refreshed and clearly loving every minute of it.

And why wouldn’t they?

This might well indeed be their spiritual home; Leo lives over the road and wrote Stars Over Cloughanover as he walked home after a long night – and you’ll never, ever see a publican as enthusiastic about introducing a band on stage than Willie Campbell was in announcing the return of the Saw Doctors.

They had their old mate and original Saw Docs drummer, Padraig Stevens, as an entirely appropriate support; the man is a poet and a comedian all rolled into one – his way with words deserves a wider audience too.

That’s another thing about the Saw Doctors; they don’t forget their friends. Padraig has always been part of the story and Campbell’s Tavern got a stage because the lads did a free gig there to thank Willie for the loan of the hall for rehearsals over 30 years ago.

The lucky ones have tickets for their UK shows later in the year – in Glasgow, Leeds, the Brixton Academy in London and Manchester Apollo – and we only hope that they’ll be swinging this way, closer to home again, long before they ever call it a day.

Because this is rock ‘n’ roll – and they’re never getting their old jobs back.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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