Too Late to Stop Now So Hard to Beat

This programme contains some strong language.

I've a massive fondness for the music that comes out of here.

Especially now, there's so many great new bands.

The happiest days of my life, being in the Undertones,

cos it was so exciting.

I think Northern Ireland produced a lot of melodic music.

There's a great sense of melody.

It was a concept - create my own soul music.

Not black, not white, but my particular soul music.

Music is something we do really well in Northern Ireland.

We produce amazing players.

The songs from here have real value across the world,

and those tunes give voice to our shared hopes,

our humour and our history.

MUSIC: "I Want To Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles

The 1960s would be a decade of extremes for the North,

and one very noisy arrival in 1963 was The Beatles.

In the audience was a budding guitarist from East Belfast.

I went on my own to see them.

It was really funny, because I was about this tall,

and of course, all the girls were standing on the seats,

and they were about 18, or whatever,

and you just hear, "It's been a hard..."

and screaming for the rest of the song!

I was jumping up and down the whole time,

catching little glimpses of The Beatles in the distance,

and it was amazing.

Just to say you were there, it didn't really matter.

You'd hear a bit of a song,

and you were in the same room as The Beatles - that was good enough for me.

MUSIC: "Baby, Please Don't Go" by Them.

Ruby Murray had soothed the last generation with Softly, Softly,

but this next decade was about freedom

and challenge and attitude.

The music started changing through television -

you'd see bands and their hair'd be really long

and they'd be playing rhythm and blues,

and that's when it all started happening for me.

There was a definite revolution, that I sensed, you know.

And it didn't go away!

I was brought up with this music,

and my father had the records,

he had blues records, rhythm and blues records,

so I'd heard this stuff for as long as I can remember,

so it had nothing to do with trends,

it was the fact that it could be done.

It was kind of like, I saw these guys in London doing it,

and if they can do it, we can do it.

And so Belfast produced its own exciting soundtrack.

Featuring Van Morrison, it was the arrival of Them.

We used to practise in Dougie Knight's, Shaftesbury Square,

above Knight's cycle shop. If it hadn't been for Dougie,

groups wouldn't have had anywhere to practise!

I was singing, Van was singing...

..and gradually, it just...

It went from that to Van doing more of the singing than I was.

Belfast's venue of choice was the Maritime Hotel.

The rhythm and blues nights started there in April 1964,

with thrilling results.

The Maritime was a fantastic place, because it was small,

filled with sweaty bodies, and bands that were very exciting,

bands that were playing their own music.

The first time that I saw Them, I thought the band were incredible,

and Van was wearing an old army jacket,

and he came to the fore and played a saxophone,

and it really did blow my mind.

# Started playing in the Maritime

# That's Jerry, Jerry and Jimmy

# You know, they were always fine...#

It was good energy, and it was new then,

because there was no such thing as... I mean...

It was an education thing, as well, cos rhythm and blues, you know,

if you didn't know about it, it was out of the ordinary.

You had to educate people to what rhythm and blues was.

# What are Them? #

Friday night at the Maritime, the music was raw,

it was loud, it was raucous.

After a visit to the Spanish Rooms,

which was known as the Scrumpy House, for a couple of pints of scrumpy...

Quite mad, like you were bullet-proof. Nothing mattered!

When Them travelled to London to record for the Decca label,

they met another Ulsterman, Phil Coulter, from Derry.

I was seconded to the band,

not so much as a musical director

or assistant producer or anything.

In the early days, more as an interpreter,

because the guys made no attempt whatsoever

to make themselves understood. They would just go...

HE IMITATES ACCENT

And Phil Coulter was in the studio

to witness the American producer Bert Burns at work with the band.

I walked into the rehearsal,

and there was Bert, with his little guitar, and the boys playing.

He's driving the band on. They're playing Here Comes The Night.

It was the first time, ever, that I had heard it,

but in my mind there was no doubt this was a hit.

# He's turning down the lights

# And now he's holding her the way I used to do

# I see her closing her eyes

# Telling him lies, exactly like she told me too

# Yeah, well, here it comes

# Here comes the night... #

They were a gutsy, raw R&B band - one of the best ever, I think.

The fact that they were from Belfast, or from Northern Ireland,

made it just extra special.

Fronted by a fantastic singer.

# Here comes the night...#

By the time we got to Here Comes The Night, to me,

that was going in the direction of making pop records.

That's not really what I wanted to do,

that wasn't what it was about.

So, that's where it all started to go haywire.

My original intention, and where I was coming from, musically,

was rhythm and blues, and soul.

That's what I wanted to do,

but all that was getting sidetracked all the time by other agendas,

other producers, record companies, marketing, all this kind of stuff.

All this stuff was getting sidetracked,

so I just wanted to break everything down, and create my own soul music.

Van Morrison went solo,

and soon moved from the pop music of Brown-Eyed Girl to Astral Weeks,

an album full of wonder, and jazz, and soul.

It wasn't a massive record. It didn't sell on a massive scale.

I think it was critically acclaimed.

He was recording in New York, but namechecking the places back home.

I wrote the songs here. I had to leave.

I didn't really have a choice.

If I wanted to be a professional singer, I had to go elsewhere,

cos there wasn't anything...

You couldn't do that here. Professionally, you couldn't do it.

# Down on Cyprus Avenue

# With the childlike visions creeping into view

# Clicking, clacking of the high-heeled shoes...#

Astral Weeks kind of changed everything.

It just blew everything apart.

We used to go round Cyprus Avenue,

and we used to think, "We're in Van's songs!"

We literally did. We were just so obsessed.

# Marching with the soldier boy behind... #

The times when I've been around the world, away from home,

feeling homesick, that's the record I can always turn to and listen to.

It has so many great references to Belfast and Northern Ireland.

There was an innocence in the music back then,

but with the release of Astral Weeks in 1969,

this sweet vision of home was giving way to a nightmare.

# Outside, they're making all the stops

# The kids out in the street collecting bottle tops

# Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops

# Happy, taken Madame George...#

This is the thing that I've never been able to understand about the Troubles,

how quickly we became so ghettoised.

The people that I was hanging about with in the jazz club

and the Maritime Hotel, were fairly liberal and left all that behind.

It wasn't until the displacement of population,

when Catholics moved into Catholic areas,

and Protestants were being forced in with Protestants...

It became so ghettoised, burning houses and stuff,

and the whole town centre went dead.

Belfast wasn't on the news for the music now,

but that was still important,

as an amazing blues guitarist called Rory Gallagher

hired two local boys to join his band, Taste.

We used to dream at nights, and say,

"Wouldn't it be great? Can you imagine playing with Rory?

"Could you imagine playing the Marquee Club in London with Rory?"

and we dreamt about all this stuff,

and of course, when Rory then said, "Yeah, let's do this,"

for us, it was like a natural progression,

but the musical values,

the three of us shared that, and that was the love of the music,

first and foremost, not the show, not the business,

just the actual, physical thing

of three musicians going on stage and playing together.

Rory wasn't into rehearsing, and neither were we,

but he would come up with ideas, we'd come up with ideas,

and we'd try them out on the gigs,

that was the way it worked. We were like jazz musicians,

but we were young kids with long hair.

But it wasn't all blues and free expression out there.

And now, song number four, entitled Puppet On A String,

written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter.

A Derry boy was aiming for Eurovision.

Now it's become a bit of a parody,

but back then, it was kind of a musical Olympics.

Sandie Shaw was the nominated singer,

and I remember saying to my then partner, Bill Martin,

the smart thing here is not to write a song for Sandie Shaw.

The smart thing is to write a song for Europe.

And we thought, "Well, we can't really compete with the Italians

"or the French for the big lyrical ballads, but we should have a go at the cutesy."

So, going cutesy became Puppet On A String.

# Congratulations, and celebrations... #

He was back a year later, with Cliff Richard.

Congratulations has gone on to become a song

that has fed, clothed and educated several of my children,

so, you know, why should I complain?

And then it was Dana's turn.

I went out to RTE, and there was a whole panoply of acts singing songs,

and right in the middle of it was this little girl from Derry,

and I thought, "Wow, that's so different. That could just do it."

I sent the song up to our publicity company,

did a new arrangement on it, and that won Eurovision again.

So, it was a first, a second, and a first, within three years.

# City sights, neon lights...#

The high tide of peace and love - Woodstock Festival, 1969,

and there was a guy from Portstewart on that stage,

playing with Joe Cocker.

It was just another gig for everybody,

until about three days before it, when the TV people got onto it,

and the amount of people that that brought out of the woodwork

to head for Woodstock - it was almost a pilgrimage, at one point,

to get to Woodstock for the festival.

And it just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger,

and today, a lot of kids come up - "What was it like at Woodstock?"

It was great. It was a strange one, you know,

but it was brilliant, altogether.

# What would you do if I sang out of tune?

# Would you stand up and walk out on me? #

In 1969, I was in a cinema in Dublin, and Woodstock came on,

and I suddenly stood up,

and punched the man in front of me on the shoulder,

and shouted, "I know him!"

And indeed, in a way, I did.

# Put your hands in the air, Simple Simon says... #

Eric Bell was a guitarist on the showband scene,

but a meeting with his friend, Gary Moore,

inspired him to cut loose.

I said, "Hi, Gary," and he said, "Hi, Eric..."

HE IMITATES AN ELECTRIC GUITAR

..and he did all these raw Eric Clapton licks,

and I stood and I thought, "What am I doing, playing Simple Simon Says?"

And it started something in my head again, you know,

"I've got to get out of here!"

Gary was a Belfast boy who connected with the singer Phil Lynott in Dublin.

The pair of them would often travel up north.

They used to come up to Belfast with me at weekends and sleep on the couch at my mum's house.

My dad would come in drunk at night

and my dad used to keep my mum up

and - I know he'll deny this, but it really happened.

He'd say to me, "Don't leave me with your dad.

"Your fucking dad's going to come in and drive me fucking mad."

As soon as my dad came home, I'd go straight up to my old bedroom and get some kip and leave him down there

and I could hear my dad droning on at him, and he'd kill me in the morning.

The girl next door fell in love with him and everything.

She'd always get dressed up when she knew Phil was around.

But he loved going to Belfast.

We used to go and see Jim Armstrong and we'd get up and jam with him, play some blues.

Yeah, he loved it there.

In 1969, Eric was in Dublin, looking for a break.

He would also stumble across Phil.

This band came on, called Orphanage, and Phil Lynott was the singer,

who I'd never seen before in my life,

and Brian Downey was the drummer.

Phil wasn't playing the bass, he was just doing this afro dance

with a kaftan on. He looked amazing.

But it was the drummer that knocked me out. Brian Downey's drumming...

I just said, "Who is this guy? I've got to get him for my band."

That was the only thought in my head.

They made a deal backstage.

He said, "We'll start a band with you on two conditions."

I said, "What's that?" He said... This is Phil talking.

"I want to play the bass. I'm taking lessons from Brush Shiels at the moment

"and I want to do some of my own songs."

And that's how Thin Lizzy started.

# As I was going over

# The Cork and Kerry mountains

# I saw Captain Farrell

# And his money he was counting... #

Thin Lizzy was a band I was proud to be into, being Irish.

They kind of changed my life, got me really into rock music.

And also two of the guitarists in their ever-changing guitar line-up

were Eric Bell and Gary Moore, who were Northern Irish,

and Eric Bell is one of my favourite guitarists of all time. He's a bit Hendrixy, you know, more lyrical.

You could really hear the Irish melody in his playing.

He's so underrated. He's one of the best ever.

# Whiskey in the jar... #

I used to sit and play the guitar and Phil would be walking about

and he would always say, "Is that yours?"

And I'd say, "No, it's off..." Led Zeppelin's album or something.

"Is that yours?" "Yeah."

"What, that chord thing you're doing..."

HE HUMS A CHORD SEQUENCE

I'd say, "Yeah, that's mine."

HE HUMS A CHORD SEQUENCE

He'd say, "Right." And he went away and wrote lyrics for it.

# I am your main man if you're looking for trouble

# I'll take no lip No-one's tougher than me

# I'd kick your face You'd soon be seeing double

# Hey, little girl Keep your hands off of me

# I'm a rocker

# I'm a rocker

# I'm a roller too, baby

# I'm a rocker... #

Meantime, the Antrim boy Henry McCullough

was called to a rather important audition with Paul McCartney.

Oh, I was nervous!

I grew up with The Beatles.

When I was playing in showbands, we were playing Beatles songs.

I had about three pints of Guinness before meeting Paul,

just to settle meself,

and we talked and stuff

and we jammed around for about three days

and at the end of it he just said, "Do you want to join a band?"

And that's just how he put it. Who wouldn't, you know?

I mean, Jesus...!

I know about twelve players

that would give more than one finger

to play with Paul McCartney, and better men than me they would be.

It's an opportunity of a lifetime, but once you get into it

and you adapt to the lifestyle

of the way it has to be, because you're part of that team, part of Paul McCartney's group,

you can get on a Lear jet and end up in bloody Morocco and stuff.

In the studio, we did My Love,

a ballad that we were doing,

and we'd rehearsed it and we had a full orchestra - that was recorded live, playing and sang live.

And...we had the whole orchestra all waiting, you know, for the downbeat

and Henry McCullough, the Irish guitar player, comes over to me.

"We're ready to go." He says, "Just a minute." "What, Henry?"

"Do you mind if I change the solo?"

I said to him, in all honesty,

"Listen, that's crap. I want to change the solo."

And they're all waiting to go.

-HE GULPS

-"Not at all. You go ahead!"

He said, "What are you going to play?" I said, "I don't know."

And it was one of the best solos he ever played.

I remember playing two notes on the solo

but I don't remember any of it

and...

it's very unusual

to get a solo of that length as a one-off.

One, two, three...

Back in Ireland, and Horslips were the stuff of legend.

On bass guitar, from Ardboe in County Tyrone, Mr Barry Devlin.

The whole Horslips thing was to,

for better or worse, to try and do kind of a fusion thing.

Fusion was a big buzzword at that time.

# My love is colder than black marble by the sea

# My heart is older than the cold oak tree... #

We were all lying about in a Chinese restaurant

and somebody said, "Let's call this group something,"

Some pretentious person, probably me,

said, "Let's call it the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." A sudden voice across the table said,

"I think it should be the Four Poxmen of the Horslips."

And Horslips it was.

The North was an interesting mix for us. It was also quite interesting to play, in the Chinese sense,

in that we were scared witless a lot of the time.

You know, it was a pretty desperate time.

At night, you never knew... coasting along the road

and you'd see headlights in the distance or coming up behind you

and you'd go, "I wonder what this is." And we had a couple of frights.

But we kind of...

We did what we had to do. We weren't going to stop playing.

At the time, we kind of went, "Well, yeah, the worse that could happen is you get a hiding."

But as it turned out, the worst that could happen wasn't that you could get a hiding.

July 31st, 1975.

Three members of the Miami Showband murdered on their way home from a gig.

In the mid-70s, few bands played in the North,

but Rory Gallagher remembered the better times and his return visits were even more welcome.

On bass, Gerry McAvoy.

I'd been a Belfast boy. It was like coming back to...

I'm not saying adulation, but it was just the effect the audience had on me,

the way they responded to Rory coming on the stage.

The response was fantastic.

It's hard to...

to explain the emotions,

because it was encompassed within the two and a half hours of that particular night

and it was...euphoric.

It was like fans going crazy - they just idolised the man.

He was quite different offstage. He was his own man, very quiet and shy.

I loved Rory's playing. He never lost the fact that he was from Donegal.

He loved that part of himself.

He used to do a lot of acoustic stuff and mandolin stuff

if, I think once or twice, we did have a bit of a session going,

but it was too rare actually.

I'm sorry I didn't get to know him even more, because he was always touring,

always touring in the North.

He just felt very comfortable, part of him being an Ulsterman.

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

There were riots on Great Victoria Street, Belfast, in 1975

and it was all Phil Coulter's fault, for writing those Bay City Rollers songs.

# We were rippin' up We were rockin' up

# Roll it over and lay it down... #

We had, I suppose, maybe the four or five top three records

on the trot in the UK, and throughout the world, because they were a global phenomenon.

But most importantly, we had a number one single and a number one album in the United States,

which catapulted them into mega-status.

Unfortunately they didn't sustain,

because there wasn't the substance, to be brutally honest.

# ..as we ran with the gang Doin' doo wop be dooby do ay... #

I make no apologies for the Bay City Rollers.

People seem to think that I should, but I think it was great fun,

sold a lot of records and everybody had a good time.

The ultimate moment - Elvis Presley records your song.

It probably would be one of my prouder boasts as a professional songwriter,

the only non-American songwriter to have written a hit single for Elvis.

I'm of an age that I remember Presley. He changed the picture.

# I know it's hard to understand

# Why did we ever start?

# We're more like strangers now

# Each acting out a part

# I have laughed, I have cried

# I've lost every game

# Taken all I can take

# But I'll stay here just the same... #

Even to this day, when I hear that Presley record,

I pinch myself and say,

you know, here am I, a young fellow from Abercorn Terrace,

and there's Elvis Presley singing my song!

# I stay

# I stay because of you

# My boy... #

Van Morrison is established in America now, with a series of amazing albums,

but Belfast was never that far away from his thoughts.

# And it's a long way to Buffalo

# It's a long way to Belfast City too... #

Any writers or poets that were from here,

they do keep coming back in their imagination, cos it's like the source.

Most people from here...you know, even if they live... they still have a sense of place.

To the pessimistic eye, there was no future for Northern Ireland.

-Happily, punk rock arrived.

-MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones

# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat

# Every time she walks down the street

# Another girl in the neighbourhood... #

They could really play and it was a unique sound

that started Teenage Kicks -

that "oompa-oompa-oom!"

That brilliant intro. Why can't the drums start the song?

# I'm gonna call her on the telephone

# Have her over cos I'm all alone... #

We just plugged in, set the mics up... I don't remember the details.

Started playing and it just came out like that. Dunno - magic.

-I can't explain it.

-It's probably down to...with him

and he'd be "turn the guitar up, turn the guitar up."

It was like a fight between the two guitars.

So suddenly you reach this area where all the guitars sound great.

But to be honest, I've never got that guitar sound ever again.

# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat

# Every time she walks down the street... #

There's something about the Undertones guitar sound on Teenage Kicks.

As a guitar player,

you can NEVER recreate that Teenage Kicks guitar sound. It's iconic. It's brilliant.

# Get teenage kicks right through the night

# I'm gonna call her on the telephone

# Have her over cos I'm all alone... #

Teenage Kicks was unbeatable. Even now, it's an anthem that brings out the fan in so many musicians.

# I wanna hold her Wanna hold her tight... #

It just seemed to be so confident and so sparkling

and so gloriously poppy that I just wouldn't imagine that song coming from here.

It just totally blew me away.

When I found out it was Northern Irish, I was just so proud.

And from Derry - my whole family are from there.

# I wanna hold her Wanna hold her tight... #

It was a crucial figure in England who spread the news -

DJ John Peel.

John Peel played it,

and he said, "Isn't that the most wonderful record you ever heard?"

And for the first time in Radio 1 history, he played it again.

The Undertones had a classic understanding of the pop song

and a totally unique singer.

# ..Sure to go to heaven... #

-We didn't...sort of, tell him what to sing or anything.

-No.

He started singing and that's the way the Feargal Sharkey voice came out. Like, wow!

# My mum said it cost a package

# She won't even let me explain... #

Remember when we first made a demo, we were not liking the singing.

Terrible thing to say!

That's before you realise, you have to let the singer sing.

Thankfully, we did!

# ..Mother's little golden boy... #

The Undertones were funny and sharp and self-aware.

They were pure Derry.

They had the perfect mixture of teenage heartbreak...

you know, fancying girls,

the feeling inadequate with the cousins and the cool boys.

Cos Sharkey was that brilliant front man - off the wall, kinda quirky,

kinda nerdy.

It was just the boys from the bog.

# What I like to do he doesn't... #

# Big time... #

Punk rock excitement was everywhere.

It even had its own record label - Good Vibrations,

founded by Terri Hooley.

Punk was my hippies' revenge.

We tried to hand you the flowers and you beat us up. Look what's happened to society now - punk!

It didn't matter if you were Catholic, Protestant or you had pink hair or you're from Mars.

As long as you were a punk, that was your guiding force. I just thought, "This is absolutely brilliant.

"This is doing my old anarchist heart good."

The label's first single - Big Time by Rudi.

Terri's importance really can't be overestimated,

cos he encouraged people. He was a great ideas man.

Before that, people just laughed at us

and thought, "These are just stupid kids, they'll grow out of it."

But he took you seriously and with his contacts, he could do something about it.

# Big, big time... #

We'd never been to a recording studio or anything,

and Terri was able to go, "Right, we'll do this, we'll do this."

And we would never have thought of that ourselves.

I remember when the record arrived back. It was amazing to open this box and there's this record

and you put it on the record player and it was Rudi. It was great.

Out there, to us, it was always a secret how you made that.

Now every kid in Northern Ireland should know how you make a record, how easy it is.

It was time to celebrate life in Belfast again -

to go back to the city centre to visit clubs like the Pound and the Harp Bar.

The Harp Bar was in Hill Street. It was one of the oldest bars in Belfast.

It looked like a derelict building outside - barbed wire round

and a security gate to let you in.

Inside, it looked almost derelict. It was black.

The toilets didn't have cubicle doors on the cubicles

and you went outside, it didn't look any different in the main dance area.

It was a very intimidating place if you weren't part of that crowd.

But to us, it was home.

It was THE punk club in Belfast. It was us against the world. The best thing there is at that age.

The Outcasts were contenders,

so were Ruefrex

and Protex.

Victim had their moment

and so did Big Self.

# Nothin' for us in Belfast

# The Pound's so old it's a pity

# OK, there's the Trident in Bangor... #

A Belfast act called Stiff Little Fingers

saw this as their opportunity to make a political stand.

# They don't even know, you know Just want our money

# And we can take it or leave it What we need

# Is an alternative Ulster

# Grab it and change it It's yours - an alternative Ulster

# Ignore the bores and their laws... #

Four kids from Belfast writing about the Troubles

and this is the great political rock bomb we've all been waiting for.

It took us back a bit cos, you know, as far as we were concerned

anything we'd written was just about our own lives.

We didn't see ourselves as the great political voice of the disaffected youth of Northern Ireland.

# They make us feel indebted For saving us from hell

# And then they put us through it... #

Stiff Little Fingers were one of the few bands to sing about sectarianism.

They believe they made a difference.

# Don't believe them Don't believe them

# Don't be bitten twice

# You gotta suss, suss, suss... #

We'd met a couple of kids after a show

who said that because of the influence of the band and lyrics

they thought twice about getting involved

with their local paramilitaries.

And, I mean, all party politics and so on aside,

that could've been a couple of lives saved.

# Why can't you tell us the truth?

# Why did you lie to us? #

Stiff Little Fingers left Belfast and the Troubles behind

but those early records are still hugely popular.

# Why did you lie to us? Why did you lie to us? #

Everything that the band did then or was involved in, I totally stand by.

There are a few music lovers out there that think maybe we should've...

learned to play the instruments before we actually cut a record, but, er, no.

This exciting period was no bad thing for the Moondogs from Derry.

And for another Belfast act - the Starjets.

We did it the old-fashioned way. We put all our equipment in a van

and got the ferry over and sort of drove down to London

and slept on people's floors

and...we eventually wrote some songs

and got a record deal.

Brought out a couple of singles on CBS,

one of which was a track called War Stories which got to 47,

which was...made us popstars in Belfast, you know - going on Top Of The Pops.

# This is the way it all started... #

# Best story I've ever heard... #

The Undertones delivered so many great singles

and then a more serious aspect revealed itself in the music.

We did Top Of The Pops, I think the very day Bobby Sands died.

The title alone was supposed to be about hunger strikes, cos...

Irish history of hungry strikes

and I said, "I'm gonna wear a black armband, does anyone else want to?"

Nobody spat on it at the time.

-But it was of its time.

-I felt... it was, it was a scary moment, you know.

It was a bad time for Northern Ireland.

Tensions were high and emotions were very high.

# Going to sleep without blinking a blue eye... #

It was the final call for punk rock.

It was also the beginning of the end for The Undertones.

They were all a bunch of miserable gits - it's true.

-Except for me, of course.

-It's true. We always wanted to go home.

See, that's why The Undertones weren't rich -

-because they didn't want to work, they didn't want to work for their living.

-And rightly so!

In 1979, Gary Moore is back with Thin Lizzy

and a crucial part of the Black Rose album.

He had a couple of sides to him, Phil, like most people do.

He had the very soft romantic side and then the other side,

which was quite mercenary and ruthless.

# MUSIC - Intro to "Parisian Walkways"

He's also working on a solo album,

which features his pal, Phil Lynott, in a sentimental ballad,

Parisian Walkways.

# I remember Paris in '49

# The Champs Elysees... #

The song had a secret meaning for Phil.

Phil wrote it about Paris, but his middle name is Paris.

His dad was called Paris, and he was born in '49,

so "I remember Paris in '49" that's what he was singing about.

That was how he was, he wrote very oblique lyrics

and you wouldn't really know what he was on about.

But it would work on both levels, so it could have been about Paris,

but it's whatever you want it to be about, which is the sign of a great songwriter.

We did it a bit at a time, when he had a night off,

we'd go to the studio and do a bit. He'd say, "Let's get an accordion!"

Then he'd stand there squeezing it and I'd play the notes.

Then we'd get a double bass! He'd never played it in his life.

So we'd put chalk marks on the neck so he'd know here the notes were.

It was just for the intro. He didn't have a clue.

Gary and Phil continued to work together, scoring another hit - Out In The Fields.

The song wasn't really written about Northern Ireland,

the video was all set against Belfast and the soldiers and everything.

But the song was just a general anti-war song.

But because of where we came from we wanted to make it about that

when we filmed the video.

# It makes no difference if you're black or if you're white... #

By now, Phil's heroin problem was severe.

He would be dead in less than a year.

He'd gone so far down that road,

that I don't think he was capable of helping himself.

And you could talk to him about it and he would say, "Thanks,"

but the next day nothing had really changed.

When someone's your friend you try and help them,

and I know other people talked to him about it.

But he wasn't the kind of guy that would listen easily.

# ..a thousand more will die each day

# Death just a heartbeat away... #

Over in Donegal, a totally fresh sound was developing.

Clannad had released six albums of traditional music,

but Harry's Game was something else.

THEY SING IN HARMONIES

Nobody in Ireland wanted to hear us.

Nobody wanted to hear this band that was singing in Gaelic.

They thought we were mad. Then when Harry's Game happened,

the beauty of Harry's Game is the fact that it was in Irish.

All these people that said, you know, "Get rid of that language,

"it won't last for another five years," were the same people

who were saying, "I always knew it was there."

# Satisfied If the past it will not lie... #

In 1986, Clannad released a duet with one of their many fans -

Bono from U2.

When we were doing the album, Macalla, we had this,

what we thought was a really amazing backing track.

And it was hard to know what to do with it.

We went round to the pub after the session and

some of U2 boys were in there, and we ended up chatting.

A couple of days later Bono ended up coming in to the studio.

He and I just took microphones and started to sing

anything that came into our heads first.

It was an amazing learning point and to this day

it has been for me, for being able to... I mean, when people ask me

to sing with them or on other albums, it was at this point

that gave me the courage to do so.

Bono just came in and he didn't care what people thought of him

just stretching for notes and trying different things.

And while Clannad were astonishing people with those voices

sister Enya was setting out for a rather successful solo career.

# We can sail, we can sail

# With the Orinoco Flow... #

Elsewhere, Silent Running had big ambitions.

#..to walk on the wild side... #

Cruella de Ville were on fire.

# Onward, onward, onward, onward Dancing heel to toe! #

Andy White was free wheeling.

The Bank Robbers were breaking out.

And, yes, there was Baltimore.

# ..come and join me

# You won't be sorry It's easy to survive... #

In the meantime, Fergal Sharkey was out of The Undertones,

and into The Assembly.

# It never happens to me... #

And in 1985, he was number one with A Good Heart.

# So please be gentle with this hea-a-a-rt

# With this heart of mi-i-i-i-ne... #

The O'Neill Brothers were also keen to follow on from The Undertones

with That Petrol Emotion, the music was cool and the politics, acute.

There was definitely a harder edge to the Petrols,

consciously so. The idea was to educate people more about

certain injustices that we thought were happening in Northern Ireland.

So, for instance, in the back of our first single we talk about

how many children get killed by plastic bullets and blinded.

Or our LP sleeve might be talking about

terrible conditions in Armagh jail for women prisoners.

We just wanted to say something, we felt frustrated

that people weren't getting to hear about these things.

I don't know if putting it on the back sleeve of a pop record

is the best way to do it. At least we were trying.

Belfast act The Adventures were also thinking about home and A Broken Land.

It is about Northern Ireland, but at the time

there was a huge upheaval in South Africa.

And that's when I thought about the song.

But of course it was just as pertinent to Northern Ireland.

I thought it was OK for me to do it because I'd lived there.

# Comfort me through this stormy weather

# From where I stand

# I see a broken land... #

By now, The Adventures had been joined in London

by Ten Past Seven.

On guitar, Bap Kennedy and on vocals, brother, Brian.

# Tom Waits

# Tom waits patiently, ah

# I can hear

# A swordfish trombone... #

We lived in Tottenham and they moved into a squat

literally three doors down from us.

And we used to feed them and look after them, to a certain degree.

There was like this big musical community

living in this street in Tottenham.

That was really our first taste of London. It was brilliant.

The Adventures were unbelievably kind to us.

I'm telling you it didn't get much harder than that.

There was a lot of starvation,

you know, it was hard times as well as good times.

Ten Past Seven split and Brian Kennedy went solo.

Welcome a newcomer on the music scene with his first single,

which shot into the charts. It's called Captured and it's by Brian Kennedy.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# Oh I just heard a melody

# And it almost made me cry

# My voice was filled with yearning... #

When Captured came out Pump Up The Jam was number one in the UK.

My record didn't even have any drums on it.

It had percussion on it, but no drum kit.

So I couldn't have been more at odds, culturally, with what was happening.

But that's what was in my heart and I feel lucky because

first time out I made the record I wanted, that rarely happens.

# Belfast... #

Meantime, Ten Past Seven grew into Energy Orchard,

fronted by Bap Kennedy.

# You're like heaven

# You're like hell! #

Belfast was still pretty much in the news for the wrong reasons

and we were a Belfast band.

And we thought we were under pressure to say something or do...

You can't just write a pop song and pretend we're not from Belfast.

So we thought our first song should be this song, Belfast.

# We...We sang

# Cos we just didn't care

# Sing out louder

# I will soon be there... #

-# Chain, chain, chain

-Chain, chain, chain... #

Down in Dublin and the director Alan Parker

was casting for a film, The Commitments.

Oh, it was just, I don't know...

It was just brilliant. It was just brilliant.

It was just...It was... Well, for meself, I was a soul freak.

I was 17, just turned 18 when we did The Commitments,

and I was just soul mad.

There was about four auditions.

And they were very clear to me about my accent,

I was the only non-Dub in the film.

And they said, "You're not from Dublin," and I said, "That I know."

And they said, "You're not a singer." I said, "Right, OK." Ouch!

But they said, "You're an actress and if you get a part,

"it will be because of your acting ability, not your singing."

# Chain, chain, chain. #

# You had a little time and you had a little fun didn't ya, didn't ya... #

And there was another distinctive voice from the north west,

Briana Corrigan was singing with Paul Heaton and The Beautiful South.

# Yours for good, I hope you're glad

# Sad into unsad... #

The first time I heard A Little Time I thought, "Ah, this is great, this is lovely"

and it was probably the first thing I'd heard from Paul that I thought "He's written this for me to sing".

We didn't know before we sat and listened to the charts on the Sunday night.

We were sitting waiting to see whether it was us or I think it was Maria McKee. It was Maria we...

How could I forget that. That was a real moment of...huh! Maria McKee.

Em, but I remember sitting waiting and it came up she was No2,

I think it meant we were No.1 and it was a really phenomenal feeling it really was.

-# I've had a little time

-I've had a little time

-# I've had a little time

-I've had a little time. #

# Twas on one bright March morning

# I bid New Orleans adieu... #

Strabane singer Paul Brady had made his reputation in the traditional music field.

# ..my fortune to renew... #

Paul Brady is a really old friend and he goes back a long, long way.

From the word go I was a fan

and followed his career all the way.

# Snow-bound siren in the winter dawn

# There's a blizzard blowing in from off the river... #

He developed into an all-rounder, writing songs for Carlos Santana,

Tina Turner and Ronan Keating.

He's gone out there and he's tried, you know, so many variations of his music,

of his style, played with different people. I love that. I think that's what music's about.

It's not about staying in one place.

# Tonight we'll go and paint this town

# We're gonna drink champagne till we both fall down

# And we'll find some other crazy dream tomorrow. #

The Four Of Us came out of Newry

with a strong sense of their music, their visual style

and their business potential.

We started with recordings in Newry

and started writing songs in our bedroom

and then we moved to Belfast

and basically just continued to do that.

# Oh, Mary while I do have some sense

# Please do something... #

If you have big songs you get big reactions.

Sometimes you write a song and it has one of those choruses people can sing.

To hear 30,000 people just singing back a song

that was written in a bedroom on acoustic guitar and a wee timpani drum box is pretty amazing, you know.

# Oh, Mary while I do have some sense

# Please do something

# To restore my confidence... #

There's a perfect song out there and there's a perfect performance

and a perfect record and we're trying to get there.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time we introduced you

to our very, very special guest this evening.

One of the great sons of Ulster. A big round of applause please for Mr Van Morrison.

APPLAUSE

In 1988, Van Morrison was working with The Chieftains on a folk collection -

Irish Heartbeat.

# On Raglan Road

# On an autumn day I saw her first and knew... #

Stuff that I heard when I was a kid like My Lagan Love, Star Of The County Down -

strange as it seems the versions I heard were John McCormack

and Kenneth McKellar - that kind of thing.

It was the Scotch/Irish thing.

# At the harvest fair she'll be surely there

# And I'll dress in my Sunday clothes... #

There was another Belfast man involved in this project -

the very talented Derek Bell.

Derek had a lot of knowledge of music

and he was actually a music genius in the classical sense of the word.

Em, he could play any type of music.

I actually tried to get him to do other projects with me,

but he was sort of locked up with The Chieftains.

There was something stirring in Ballyclare and Larne.

It was time for Therapy?

Whenever Therapy? started out, we were from Larne and Ballyclare,

and we kinda realised we didn't really fit into any category.

The way we looked for a start -

you've got a chubby guy singing, a little speccy guy playing the bass

and the taciturn tall guy playing the drums.

And we were seen as what they called "Culchees".

Regardless of the fact is was only 16 miles up the road, we came to Belfast

and everyone else was more au fait with the business -

they'd look the part and they'd dress right and they had the right amps. We were this kind of anomaly.

We never had any ambitions. We never did and people think because we've sold some records...

Our biggest ambition, first of all, was getting our own 7" single out.

The other two lads were at college. I used to work for Michelin Tyres in Ballymena.

We saved up enough money

to press up a thousand 7" singles.

# Heaven kicked you out

# You wouldn't wear a tie... #

By accident, Therapy? became a pop band.

# Staring at some pictures by yourself... #

We're very, very serious about what we do

and we're very serious about the music we make.

But we've always been slightly wary of the peripheral nonsense that surrounds it.

Ash have come along and they were playing the same kind of music we did.

I think the Ulster pop crown has to be handed over

cos these lads are young and they're better-looking.

What are we gonna do now?

In Downpatrick, Ash was ready to burn.

Unfortunately, there was also homework to do.

When we were 17, the buzz was starting to pick up over in the UK

and we got offered an Elastica tour.

Elastica were getting a real buzz at the time.

And our manager had to come over to see our headmaster

and ask him permission for us to go on tour for two weeks.

Our headmaster kept him waiting outside the door

and he felt like he was back in school again!

And... Yeah, we promised him we'd do all our homework but...

I sat down and tried to do French homework on the first night.

Everyone else was, like, guzzling beer and having this great party

and I was just, like, "I can't do this."

I put my homework in my bag and never looked at it again.

# I can see it in your eyes... #

A lot of the early songs had potential.

But Girl From Mars was a killer tune.

We didn't put that on our first mini album

because we knew it felt like a hit. We held it back till we were 18,

till we'd left school and thought we could do something with it.

Two weeks after we left school, it went in at 11 in the charts.

# She never told me... #

# We made a connection

# A full chemical reaction... #

Ash were instantly successful.

But then they lost their way.

It was a big song called Shining Light that allowed them to resurface.

We knew we needed to come back with something really strong

and my song-writing sort of reached maturity with that song.

It was one of those sort of magic inspirational moments.

It won the Best Song of 2001 at the Ivor Novello Awards.

I couldn't believe it. From the low point we'd come from to that.

It was a great accolade. I was really proud.

# Look into my tired eyes

# See someone you don't recognise... #

And so Ash continued as a classic singles band

with more than a dozen hits.

# Oh, this is slow suicide

# Feelings that I can't disguise

# And never will be reconciled

# Oh, something inside has died. #

A special moment - May 1998.

Ash and U2 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.

# Stand by me... #

It was just the most insane day. We had the whole world's media there

and we ended up playing a few songs with U2.

And John Hume and David Trimble came on stage and linked hands.

It was quite amazing.

It was just a whirlwind kind of day.

Come on! CROWD CHEERS

# You can have my heart

# If you don't mind broken things... #

But that optimism was tested with the Omagh bombing.

It was Juliet Turner who captured the mood in a song.

# But I heard that you make all things new

# So I give these pieces all to you

# If you want it

# You can have my heart. #

SINGS A REQUIEM

In County Fermanagh, a choirboy had other musical ambitions.

I just really wanted people to take any notice of me at all,

I didn't mind if they...

sort of really reacted badly as long as I got a reaction.

# You don't really love me

# And I don't really mind... #

When people started listening to the records and taking notice

and actually applauding,

I'd love to say that I was surprised

but I just felt glorious vindication really.

They don't have to like your music.

There's no law that says you have to be a pop star.

And suddenly you have to kind of concentrate and work quite hard,

and make sure you're doing your job properly.

# On the National Express There's a jolly hostess... #

Neil toured with Robbie Williams and drove National Express into the charts.

Probably without those 20 gigs in the arenas of the UK

playing to 4,000-5,000 people every night

National Express would not have been the mega hit it was.

Mega hit in terms of the Divine Comedy. It got to number eight.

But it was a top-ten single and it's our only one and I'm very pleased that I've actually had one.

# They ask what hate is

# It's just the other side of love

# Just the other side of love... #

By Christmas 1995,

there was a real potential for peace

and once again it was music that underpinned that hope.

# Some say why don't you love your neighbour

# Why don't you love your neighbour?

# Go ahead and turn the other cheek

# Go ahead and turn the other cheek... #

I remember it being freezing cold.

And it wasn't lost on me how important it was

that you have somebody who grew up where I grew up in West Belfast, a Catholic upbringing,

and you have Van Morrison who grew up in East Belfast with a Protestant upbringing.

And we sang a song called No Religion. I remember that.

I remember thinking, "I love the way this is saying it without saying it, united just by being together."

That never occurred to me till journalists pointed it out.

Because for me and for Van, and one of the reasons we get on,

is that we have absolutely no interest in politics and all that stuff.

It's music that we love.

And my voice is what's brought me out into the world.

At that moment what was really very sharp in focus was co-existence,

literally singing in harmony, me and him, literally, our voices in harmony.

I'll never forget looking out across that T-junction swarmed with people, President Clinton there.

We dedicated Have I told You Lately for him and the First Lady.

So just one of those moments when you think, "My God, how did I get here?"

And I got there because Van is so generous.

# Fill fill fill my heart with gladness

-# Fill my heart with gladness

-Take away my sadness

-# Take away my sadness

-Ease my troubles

# Ah that's what you do. #

'He did a recording for some project of Celtic writing'

and somebody gave me the tape.

And I heard it and I thought, "That's pretty good."

So, um, I wanted to try him out as a backup, you know,

to work in my band.

And we ran just a load of various songs, soul stuff. I can't remember exactly.

We just ran other people's songs, not my songs.

Then we tried a few of my songs

and thought, "This is working," you know.

-# Sing it out loud

-Sing it out loud

-# Sing it in your name

-Sing it in your name

BOTH: # Sing it like you're proud

-# Sing it like you're proud

-Sing the healing game. #

# Things can only get... #

Dance music was taking hold and D:Ream gave Tony Blair an election anthem.

# ..Now I've found you and you and you. #

Agnelli and Nelson were big in Ibiza.

# El Nino El Nino... #

And back in Belfast, David Holmes was the ultimate shaker.

In a way I've kind of come full circle.

When I DJ now, I play a whole mix of music and that's what I love.

In a way that's what I grew up with.

House music just cast its spell, I think, on so many people in Europe.

The most important thing was going to these clubs

and dancing for eight hours.

And then David made his move into film soundtracks.

When Ocean's Eleven came along,

I'd just seen a little caption in the Daily Mirror saying that they were making it.

And I remember I came home really pissed from this party

and I was staying in a friend's house in London.

I rang Soderbergh there and then because of the time difference

and just got through to him

and he said, "Yeah, I was going to ask you to do it anyway."

It's so nice to be home.

AUDIENCE CHEERS

I would like to say a big thank you

to our families for supporting us through 12 years.

12 years it took to get here for us!

CHEERING

MUSIC: "Starfighter Pilot" by Snow Patrol

# Andrew's a starfighter pilot

# And he can get high in his jet

# Tells me about all his women. #

Snow Patrol struggled in the early days

until one massive hit launched their career.

# You do the only thing that's right

# In all of time

# And I can barely look at you... #

'We went to a friend of ours house in Glasgow.

'There was about 50 people there.

'We had this massive party to see the chart coming in.

'We'd never done it before so... It just kept going up'

and we thought, "We haven't done it. We haven't got in."

"There's no way we could be in the chart now." It's up to six.

Six or seven. And then five.

And there it was. We were in the top five.

AUDIENCE: # Light up light up

# As if you have a choice

# Even if... #

'Run is such a unifying song when you play it live. It's not a bad thing,

'you know, to have everybody in the room signing it.

'It can only be a positive thing, you know.'

There are hopeful words and they're written in hope.

They were written at a very dark time in my life, wanting something better.

AUDIENCE: # ..As if you have a choice

# Even if you cannot hear my voice

# I'll be right beside you, dear. #

AUDIENCE WHISTLES AND CHEERS

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Belfast, you have spoiled us.

Thank you so much.

SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY CHEERS

And so many other acts are in contention.

Like former Snow Patrol guitarist Ian Archer.

Like Rocky and Shaun from Oppenheimer.

Or the havoc that is Alloy Mental.

# Time moving. #

There's the sweetness of Foy Vance.

# You look them in the eye... #

And the big rock shapes of The Answer.

# Never too late Never too late! #

An amazing person, from Ireland, a great singer-songwriter over there - Duke Special!

PLAYS HONKY-TONK STYLE PIANO

But the boy most likely to is Peter Wilson.

'For years I'd run away from playing piano.

'I had really decided I wanted to play guitar in a rock band.

'Piano wasn't a very cool and sexy instrument.

'And I think there was a whole range of things from listening to The Band

'and hearing Tom Waits for the first time and talking with friends

'and realising that what I actually do best

'is playing piano and singing.'

# Your broken heart was never on my mind. #

It was actually, coincidentally,

something that other people weren't really doing at that time...

very much. Um, so I was probably just beginning to feel comfortable with who I was

and, at the same time, beginning to think that I was an artist as a songwriter.

I wasn't someone that was wanting to be that or someone that would never be that. I actually was already.

I think all those things kind of gelled, um, into Duke Special just at that point

so I think that was such a gradual process for me. I'm a late starter, I suppose.

# No cover up

# I hope I'm learning

# Some honesty

# Some honesty. #

# Have I told you lately That I love you... #

Thee have been huge changes in the music here since the 1960s

but a constant feature has been Van Morrison.

It's a creative energy that will never be taken for granted.

# ..Take away my sadness

# Ease my troubles That's what you do. #

'The longer you do it, the harder it becomes to make it fresh cos that just simply is the way things are.

'You know, you can't do something a long time

'and expect that it's going to be the way it was when you started

'so you have to work harder.'

# ..You can make it better

# Ease my troubles That's what you do... #

'The message changes,'

you know, according to what your life experiences are,

what's going on,

um, things you feel that you need to say.

So that affects the writing.

# Out on the highways

# And the byways

# All alone

# Yeah I'm searching for

# Searching for my home

# I'm up Up in the morning

# Up in the morning

# Out on the road

# And I'm on the road again And I'm searching for

# The philosopher's stone... #

'The older you get, the more knowledge you get.'

And the more knowledge you get, that changes things because you get a different perspective.

And, you know, you know, I'm not going to say the same thing as I said when I was 20.

# ..When my job is turning lead

# Into gold

# Born in the back street

# Born in the back street

# Jelly Roll

# I'm on the road again And I'm searching for

# The philosopher's stone. #

And the Snow Patrol story still astonishes. Number One in the UK and Ireland

top of the downloads,

all over the TV and film soundtracks,

massive at Botanic Gardens

and top five in America.

# If I lay here

# If I just lay here

# Would you lie with me And just forget the world... #

'In America we worked so, so hard and we're still working hard

'and we'll almost be up to our 10th or 11th tour for these two albums.'

And, um, each one's at least a month long and so that's a full year

out of the three-and-a-bit years we've spent just in America.

And that's the way U2 did it.

'We use their sort of template, yeah.'

# .. Those three words

# Are said too much

# They're not enough

# If I lay here... #

These last 40 years have been a musical journey to be proud of.

So Hard To Beat.

# ..Would you lie with me And just forget the world?

# Forget what we're told

# Before we get too old

# Just show me a garden

# That's bursting into life. #

-# Well the choirboys sing

-Well the choirboys sing

-# Where I've always been

-Where I've always been

-# Sing a song of soul

-Sing a song of soul

# Baby don't you know?

# Don't you know?

-# We can let it roll

-Let it roll

-# On the saxophone

-On the saxophone

-Let's do jelly roll

-# Let's do jelly roll

-I'm in the healing game. #