Undertones return for special Spiegeltent gig

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@gmail.com

The gorgeous venue that is the Spiegeltent will return to the City’s Eyre Square later this month for Galway Comedy Carnival and ahead of that, it will host an impressive array of Irish talent.  From Thursday, October 18, to Sunday October 21, there’ll be shows from Damien Dempsey, Bell X1’s Paul Noonan, Cathy Davey and Derry band The Undertones.

The Undertones, who started making music in 1974, and would go on to write the guitar-pop classic Teenage Kicks, will perform on Sunday, October 21.

Their touring schedule these days is a far cry from the days in 1983 when it looked like The Undertones had played their last note.

That was when Feargal Sharkey, John and Damien O’Neill, Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty called it a day after a concert in Punchestown Racecourse.

However, drummer, Billy, hadn’t been convinced that was the right thing to do.

“I didn’t want the band to break up,” he says. “But I knew that there were tensions between Fergal and the rest of the guys. And I think we were disillusioned with the way things were going in the music scene as well; it was going from the punk into the New Romantic era. So, it was difficult for us to adapt.

“I thought we should’ve just taken a year out, to gather our thoughts and then reconvene,” he continues. “But Fergal decided he’d had enough and that was it.  I would have preferred for the other four guys in the band to stay together, but Damien and Michael decided they were going to do their own thing.”

But things changed and that was thanks to former Saw Doctor, Johnny Donnelly, as an invitation from fellow drummer, Johnny, led to the band’s reunion in the 1990s, here in Galway.

“I was invited to play at the Macnas parade by Johnny, and that’s how I go to know the Saw Doctors,” Billy explains.

“I did a song with them, and the following year Micky came down with me. I said to the other two lads ‘why don’t you come down and play with us?’ and, surprisingly, they said aye.  The four of us played with The Saw Doctors, and it was fantastic. If it hadn’t been for The Saw Doctors, we probably would have never reformed. We owe a lot to them.”

For that reason, the lads have had a special relationship with Galway since then.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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