TeamHorseTales

1994 was a quiet one for gig attendances, possibly because I had just finished University and spent that summer on the dole, the only time I’ve ever been unemployed in my life. There was only one gig in the Limelight, indie-hip-hop chancers Collapsed Lung, who were I either supporting or the main act on a bill that also featured Credit To The Nation. We didn’t get many rap bands venturing over to these parts, so I was keen to try them out. Both bands disappeared without trace not long after, but it seemed a good idea to go catch them at the time. The other concert I took in was the fallout from Reading festival, Sunstroke, which took place in Dublin’s Dalymount Park. For those not in the know, Dalymount is a football stadium, home of Bohemians. I was going to this one on my lonesome and had procured a bus service, from Skelton Travel in Lurgan to get there. The line-up for Sunstroke was Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Therapy?, Ice Cube, Helmet, Frank Black, Terrorvision, My Litt...

There’s one more gig from 1992 I haven’t written about. Ran out of puff on the last blog! This was the second and last time I would see my all-time favourite artist, Prince. On this occasion, Dublin’s RDS Arena would be the place and Prince was promoting the ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ album, with the ‘Love (Symbol)’ album around the corner. This was the start of Prince throwing the infamous symbol about, he had a guitar shaped like it and the big excessive program I bought had it all over it. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Prince just didn’t do bad shows, even if his albums were now starting to get increasingly patchy. Not going to lie, it took me a check-in with a setlist website to remind myself of what he played. There was a substantial amount of material from the Diamonds album and a terminally long section of ballads in the middle where I can only assume piss breaks were had by all! He did come back again to play Ireland, but I didn’t venture back to see him. Obviously now I regret...

At the turn of the 90s Belfast’s Ulster Hall was enjoying a peak period of being the prime spot for big acts to play. The Odyssey Arena wasn’t there yet so the two options for bigger venues were the Ulster and King’s Halls. The interior of the Ulster Hall is/was a much more pleasant space in terms of aesthetics with a beautiful ceiling and elegant balcony. Then there was the natural backdrop of the big organ at the back of the stage, though most of the bigger acts would have backdrop curtains to cover it up, but you could always see it peek over at the top. I saw Lenny Kravitz in 1991 in the Ulster Hall, he’d broken through with his debut album and was touring the follow-up ‘Mama Said’, so the emergence of swaggering Lenny was in full flow and he put on one hell of a show. It was a good time to see Lenny, up close, as he would go on to bigger things and his future music would never be as good in truth. 1992 was one of those exceptional years for classic albums and I’d been blown aw...