Across the Line at 30

Neil, what did you make of Nice'n'Sleezy tonight?

This proves there is definitely something strange

-in the water of Fermanagh.

-CHEERING

Rock School, that was fun, yeah.

Actually, I quite like sort of

being a judge at competitions.

It probably brings out the worst in me,

cos I can be very judgmental.

I'm equally judgmental about my own music

and all the stuff that I've had to do.

# Now, baby

# We know it now, my lady... #

I do remember a fantastic band from Fermanagh that night.

They were Motley Crue - they wore full Spandex, amazing hair,

great noise. I can't really remember the tune,

but I don't think that's what it was all about.

I had a lot of fun that night.

CHEERING

There was a brilliant prize at the end of it as well.

They got to play on stage at a major concert

and they got a video directed and made for them as well.

# It's been observed

# That the conserve

# That strings are lines

# It's been trialled

# It's been tested

# Become strained and burned... #

I always used to feel really jealous watching it, cos I was in a band

and when you're in a band and you're really young

and you're watching other young bands do it, you're going,

"We're far better than them. What are they doing on there?"

We were watching The Tides, that turned into General Fiasco,

we were watching Life Without Rory,

who turned into Two Door Cinema Club,

and we'd still be sitting in the practice room

or the school room the next day going,

"That band Life Without Rory aren't very good, are they?

"We're far better than them.

"Why won't Across The Line put us on?"

My favourite thing about that

was that the band Life Without Rory got turfed out

and they are now Two Door Cinema Club.

# The sticks and stones have left you alone

# And all your words will soon desert you

# Are you waiting? #

So it shows what we know.

ATL television, radio and online

became a regular presence at all our major festivals

from Belsonic to Glasgowbury,

from Oxegen to Tennent's Vital.

Right, we've got one big stage,

one slightly smaller stage over there, loads of toilets,

loads of food, loads of beer.

I think that's everything.

Oh, yeah, the crowd. Guys, come on in!

Coupled with the power of being on TV and the ATL brand,

which is so well known, we were able to do some incredible things.

Across The Line and ATL TV

were always at the best live music events,

whether that was Glasgowbury or Electric Picnic, Oxegen,

we were at all the vital concerts.

# The kind of girl, yeah, she's never alone

# You leave a thousand messages on her phone

# But you know you never get through

# You can have it all if you wanted

# You can have it all if it matters to you... #

We were able to approach bands and they would know us,

cos we played their first demos or their first albums,

so really big-name bands always had time for us.

# But you

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from my heart

# Whoa... #

There's no idea too big.

When it comes to the festivals,

when it comes to the gigs that they've done,

when it comes to The Great Northern Songbook,

when it comes to the pioneering technology

of what Across The Line's been all about,

they just get it done and that's really impressive.

# It makes me wonder

# Ah-ha-ha! #

We would stage our own gigs,

we would put on gigs in small venues like The Stiff Kitten

or Nerve Centre in Derry.

Also, sometimes people like the Ulster Hall would come to us

and say, "Could you help us put on a gig?"

In 2009, we helped them with their grand reopening gala concert.

We put that on. We called it, Do You Remember The First Time?

We got some of our favourite bands together to play tracks of their own

and also tracks by the bands that they had first seen play

in the Ulster Hall.

Every single band that we asked came back with a big fat "yes".

It also gave us a total headache as to how we were going to fit

all these bands in,

cos we wanted them all. We just didn't expect them all to say yes.

Everybody turned up

and it was one of the greatest nights of live music.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

We were told we were going to do Teenage Kicks as a finale of

the Ulster Hall show with ATL, and Tim from Ash already knew it.

They'd done a cover version. We'd done it at sound check.

You ready?

And then there was the big We Are The World moment at the end, when everyone got on.

We've done these things before, but not with as much importance as

that night, because it was a song from, like,

that was built into our DNA with people that we already respected

for a radio show that meant so much to us.

And I just remember being so nervous.

And it's one of those things,

all the nerves just went out the window and it was brilliant.

WILD CHEERING

INTRO TO TEENAGE KICKS

# Teenage dreams so hard to beat

# Every time she walks down the street

# Another girl in the neighbourhood

# Wish she was mine, she looks so good

# I want to hold her, want to hold her tight

# Get teenage kicks right through the night

# Come on! #

As moments go, it was hard to top.

Every band that I have known and loved all on stage at an ATL gig,

playing the best song that's ever been written.

# Cos it's the best I've ever had... #

And it just meant so much.

If you look at everyone's faces, everyone's really enjoying it

and everyone is smiling and it's just such a brilliant moment.

I just thought the sentiment was perfectly pitched, and to play that

song in that, you know, glorious classic venue, as well, it was...

-It was an honour to be on the stage.

-It was.

And I think everyone got into that spirit of it.

And it did take 20 years for it to happen, you know.

It took 20 years of work from...

from ATL and all those bands involved.

Considering what the music business was like in 1988, to get

there in 2008 for that moment, it was a lot of hard, hard work

to get there. So I think there was a sense of relief almost, as well.

-MICHAEL CHUCKLES

-Yeah!

WILD APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

YEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!

Thank you!

The best audience in the world!

CHEERING

The daddy of all gigs, though, came in 2010, with the invitation to

ATL TV and radio to capture a true moment in Irish music history.

Snow Patrol live in Ward Park.

WILD CHEERING

I hate to choose between the two best gigs we ever did,

but the second one just really did feel like my head...

it just felt like it was going to explode at certain points on

the stage with just pure happiness.

I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Wasn't trying to.

It was really important to us that Across The Line did the gig,

that people that had been supporting us right from the beginning

and had never wavered in their support all through the years...

We were never going to let anybody else have the controls of that gig.

They'll always be the people that we come to when we're going

to film something in Northern Ireland.

OK, so this should be the easiest introduction ever because all

you need to know is that it's the biggest show to ever take

place in Northern Ireland,

featuring the biggest band this country has ever produced.

'One of my proudest moments was getting to present'

the TV coverage of what remains Northern Ireland's biggest ever gig.

Snow Patrol in Ward Park.

WILD CHEERING

Just standing in front of 40,000 people was pretty exciting in itself,

but knowing that they were all there to see a band that I'd also

watched in the company of maybe 30 people playing in Morrisons

or the Duke of York in Belfast and watched grow to the point they were

able to fill Ward Park, I mean, that made it all the more special.

And I think band knew that as well.

Ward Park was astonishing.

It's eclipsed U2 as being the biggest gig ever to take place

in Northern Ireland, it was sensational.

-# You are all that I have

-Ooooh... #

The scale of it, the size of that rig,

both for us and for the band, nobody had done it before.

# A frightening magic I cling to... #

And for them to allow us, the ATL TV team, to bring that back home

to the people of Northern Ireland was an amazing experience.

# Give me a chance to hold on

# Just give me something to hold onto

# It's so clear now that you are all that I have

# Ooooh

# I have no fear cos you are all that I have

# Ooooh

# It's so clear now that you are all that I have

# Ooooh

# I have no fear cos you are all that I have

# Ooooh. #

We did 41,000 because U2 had done

a gig in Belfast that was 40,000, and we wanted...

HE CHUCKLES

There's many, many things, almost everything

that U2 beat us in, almost everything except one thing.

We've done the biggest gig in Northern Ireland.

They don't beat us in that.

# Oooh

# Oooh. #

WILD CHEERING

# Oooh.... #

CHEERING CONTINUES

With Snow Patrol conquering the world and other successes on

the global stage, has this inspired the next generation?

I think we have a huge confidence in the bands now and in the

music that we have here.

We have artist development all the time moving into different genres.

We have also the infrastructure that you need to help bands progress.

I think there was this feeling maybe in the '80s and '90s that if you

were in a band you had to somehow make your way across the water.

Now I think bands realise that they can do that from here.

Of course you always need to go away,

but you have all the infrastructure that surrounds bands to help

them progress to the next stage of their career.

You're starting to get the labels, you're starting to get the managers,

you're starting to get the tour managers, the producers,

the record labels - all these people that are crucial to help them

develop a band's career.

Amazingly, ATL is more relevant now than it was 15, 20 years ago,

because it's very easy for your music to get lost.

You can upload it somewhere and no-one will ever hear it,

but with ATL and especially with BBC Introducing Uploader

gives you an absolute purpose.

So when you form a band now and you write your first song that

you're happy with, your first thought is to send it to ATL, give it to Rigsy,

give it to Stu, because they're going to do something with it

they're going to play it and they're going to send it off to

Radio 1 and 6 Music and all these other places.

So your first thought before you book your first gig, almost,

is to get to your song to ATL.

It's Across The Line. We have Phil Kieran, noted producer...

'We've got this great leverage.

'If we believe in an act and think it's got relevance beyond Northern

'Ireland, we can put the word in with the BBC Introducing family

'and say Jealous Of The Birds would be great for 1 Big Weekend.

# There's not...a lot...

# That I can boast. #

R51 would be incredible for the Reading Festival and Leeds and,

you know, sometimes we're fortunate and delighted to find that they get the gigs.

It's brilliant.

There's a load of new acts who are on the way up now who are

getting all sorts of help from the show.

Their first airplay can mean the world, but also just coming

into a radio studio and doing a session and talking to

a presenter and being made to feel welcome whenever you're

talking about your music, I mean, those skills are important

for new bands, they'll take kind of elsewhere.

So we're kind of a square one, a starting point,

in a lot of ways for new bands.

OVERLAPPING MUSIC AND SPEECH

I guess, like, what I do now at Radio 1 and what I did

from day one in Across The Line, was always about new music

discovery and finding stuff before, you know,

it breaks everywhere else and bringing it in and getting

really excited about it and talking about it.

And I still think one of my proudest little finds was Soak from Derry.

She put her music into the BBC Introducing Uploader and it

was one of the times I was standing in for Rigsy,

and I put it on the radio and I was like, "Wow, this is mental!

"This kid is like 14!"

# Come on, come on...

# Be just like me

# Come on, come on

# Be a nobody

# Come on, come on

# Be just like me

# Come on, come on

# Be a nobody. #

What is central to all of this is that you have people making

amazing music, and that's what we have.

I'm sure we had people making amazing music in the '80s and

'90s, but it feels like we have so many more people doing that now.

That might be a technological thing,

it might be that the climate in Northern Ireland has changed

but, more than anything, we have more bands than ever before making

amazing music and that's always

going to be the most important thing.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Welcome to the glorious Ulster Hall and happy birthday Across The Line!

And amazing music was central to the show's 30th anniversary concert

in - where else? - Belfast's Ulster Hall.

# G-L-O-R-I-A

# Gloria!

# G-L-O-R-I-A!

CROWD: # Gloria!

# Gonna shout it all night!

# CROWD: Gloria!

# Gonna shout it every day!

# Gloria!

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #

HE EXHALES

It's hard work being a rhythm and blues legend.

LAUGHTER

It's a glorious stage and it looks incredible around you

and you knew at least a quarter of the people in the audience,

and the love was so substantial you could really feel it.

And to be able to kind of see people like Soak and even 4 Of Us,

their first time on the stage at the Ulster Hall.

# We don't stay out all night like we used to do

# Painting the town red till the sky turns blue

# My eyes still dance when I look at you

# Come walk along with me. #

The first time we played the Ulster Hall, we saw that as an added bonus.

# The hot summers past... #

It's my favourite venue in Belfast,

so to have a chance to stand up on stage where I watched

Joe Jackson do his Look Sharp tour,

or Stiff Little Fingers with I think it was Phil Lynott in 1980.

It was a bucket list moment to play the Ulster Hall, really.

To be part of the celebration with such amazing acts, as well,

and to do it with Across The Line, and feel that we were

a part of their story was an honour.

# We don't stay out all night like we used to do. #

Well, the 30-year event, the call came through and we said yes

straightaway before we even knew who else was playing.

Our manager said, "They're putting something together.

"We're not sure who else is on," and we just came straight back and said yes.

# Last night Jackie Chan came round

# I played pool with him and we hung out

# Mr Miyagi and the X-Men came in for a while as well. #

Just said, "If any other gigs come in, we're not doing it, we're doing this."

That was how important it was to us.

# Oh, Daniel San made in Taiwan

# Come on Jackie Chan Uh uh uh uh uh oh! #

Come on, Belfast!

These days, new Irish music is all over the internet.

It's no longer difficult to make your tunes available to

potential audiences.

So do we still even need Across The Line?

There's incredible value for me to people who give new music a chance.

There's not enough of that in the world.

There's not enough people taking risks.

If there isn't curation, then you don't have a point of view,

and if you don't have a point of view, you don't have a movement.

There's so much noise that a sort of filter is more important now

than ever, and really that's all Across The Line ever was.

And...hopefully will continue to be.

To have such a thriving sort of local scene,

it doesn't happen by accident, you know.

You have to actually work at it,

and things like Across The Line are how that happens.

Across The Line has done an extraordinary job.

It has encouraged music, you know, from the immediate vicinity

of Northern Ireland, but also on the island as a whole.

There's so much music out there,

you can't possibly listen to it all, and I think it's necessary to

have someone that you trust to give you an overview of what's happening.

Long may Across The Line reign. Long may it reign. It's necessary.

And awesome.