TeamHorseTales

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...

Late 80s/early 90s I attended mainly rock gigs as that’s what I was used to hearing from my big brothers’ record collections. Though there was a shift in my tastes to more maverick and risky bands than they would have entertained as I moved up to Belfast as a student. But around the time of my 18 th birthday I persuaded my brother to take me to see Heart, along with his girlfriend. This was the Brigade tour and I’d seen the Wilson Sisters in the videos for their hits from the previous album. I remember being slightly taken aback when Ann appeared resplendent in military style jacket. The concert was in the by now very familiar King’s Hall and at the peak of their powers the band played to a packed house, Ann Wilson still has an incredible voice to this day. The next concert I’d attend was a very special one. I’d been a fan of Prince since I was 12, when Purple Rain became a massive success. By 1990, he’d released the classic run of albums (Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Par...

My blogs are now going to recall as much as I can remember from the gigs and concerts I’ve been to over the years. Whilst the last few years have seen me venture out a LOT less than I used to, I’ve seen in excess of 150 artists since my first outing in 1984. Some gigs I can’t recall anything about so they’ll get a cursory mention, others will have a lasting memory or detail I’d like to share and maybe you’ll have been to some of these shows too. I thought long and hard about how to go about this, and I reckon the best way is to go chronologically. That way you get to see how my musical tastes and ability to withstand different genres came to be. So, let’s begin… The first proper show I’d been to, outside of maybe some of my big brother’s band, was an all-star outdoor festival at Ramore Head in Portrush. Indeed, it was my brothers who were heading to the concert on a rain sodden July day when 12 year old me decided he wanted to tag along. After much persuasion I was allowed to go. On ...

The second Team Horse release was a 5 track e.p. entitled 'Here Come The Hurricane', which was a line from a Simple Minds song, fact fans. I think Jim Kerr actually sings "Here Comes The Hurricane" but I liked the sound of 'Here Come' better. Feeling much more confident that there was an actual audience for this sound I really went for it again in terms of creating something downright nasty sounding. It was at this point in time I found out about a website called Echoes And Dust. They'd reviewed And So I Watch You From Afar and 'Gangs' had actually been selected as their album of the year. I figured I should send my CD to them for a review and lo and behold, the site's chief Dan Salter wrote some lovely words about the e.p. I didn't know it at this point, but this link would be massive in the reshaping of my musical 'career'. A fair amount of the songs I recorded over the years all pointed to one thing. Sometimes it would be blatant...

Boosted by recent higher profile gigs with ASIWYFA I found myself supporting the legendary Japanese psyche band Acid Mothers Temple, in the Pavilion bar. The gig was put on by the lovely Darren Smyth of Strange Victory. I’d never heard of these dudes before and was intrigued to find a group of long bearded gentlemen ensconced in this tiny upstairs bar prepping themselves for the show. The prepping consisted of burning off CDRs of their back catalogue, which matched my own recorded output of being vast and numerous. So we had something in common! I had a special ‘treat’ for the audience that night. I had lined up the piece of music by David Rose, known as “The Stripper”, to play over the PA as I collected up my gear. This also included me putting on a ridiculous dance routine of swinging leads and instruments about as I packed up my stuff. It got the biggest cheer of the night. I never did it again mind you! I also found myself supporting the American artist Josh T Pearson, for his ac...

  This blog is going to be slightly different from my regular ones. What happens next in my musical journey is very much shaped by my dalliance with one particular band. I want to devote a blog to covering the good times I spent with And So I Watch You From Afar. To this day, ASIWYFA remain one of my favourite bands. The band have continued to be a presence on the live circuit and despite line-up changes still release intriguing and ever evolving music to tantalise. Through my association with Echoes And Dust website, I’ve reviewed several of their albums. I first noticed ASIWYFA when they played as support to We Are Knives, another Belfast band with incredible musicians. I didn’t know what to expect from them as their band name initially felt kind of pretentious, albeit the lyric from a Deftones song. It became apparent though, that the instrumental post rock the band were creating was right up my street. I’d been listening to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky and ea...