TOURING WITH THE UNDERTONES By Carl Reavey.
TOURING WITH THE UNDERTONES
This is a piece that was written by my amazing, fabulous brother, Carl Reavey, about a tour he did with The Undertones as their sound engineer at the height of their success back in 1980. I wanted to share this since it gives a pretty good idea of what he was like and some of the weird things he did.
Carl: It was January 1980. Two weeks in Ireland. Small gigs. "A people's tour". Irish PA. Irish lights. Irish band fuelled and funded by heady English success. The crew had set off from Liverpool in a rusty old tramp steamer and headed west towards Murphy's isle. The sailing had been about midnight so by the time we finally climbed into our vaguely damp bunks and dropped off to sleep at about 3 in the morning, we were disgustingly full of pints of rotten beer and plates of greasy chips.
All night long the steamer plodded through the mucky waters of the Irish sea until a klaxon threw us out into the fog at about 7 am to peer at the gloomy stone piers of what passes for a harbour in Dublin. We emptied out into some dimly lit backstreet pub and drank pints of Guinness at 8 o'clock in the morning. Joe turned up and proudly showed us the brand new 10 ton Ford he had just collected from the hire company. It was full of Joe's gear, a scrambled assortment of wheezy PA and flickering par cans that you could only find in Ireland in those frontier days. Joe was from Cork. Still is actually. He looked like a leprechaun then. Still does....
The fog continued all the way to Derry. The band lived with their Mum's and Dad's, scattered about the Bogside and Creggan estates made infamous by the Troubles. We collected them all in the minibus driving through the interminable roadblocks manned by nervous-looking squaddie "Brits". Most of us had developed good stinking colds by that time and we all sat shivering in dufflecoats in another gloomy pub drinking more pints of Guinness. It was probably something like 6 at night by now, though you lose track of the time in January in Ireland. It really doesnt make much difference what the time is. It is always dark, damp and foggy and you are always sitting in gloomy pubs drinking Guinness. Anyway, our innards were telling us that some time had elapsed since we had last filled them with chips, so we decided to go and eat some Chinese at a restaurant down by the river. Before we could get there, the IRA blew the shop next to it and the police closed the road. It had been the only Chinese in town, (left standing that is), so we morosely crossed the river in our minibus (complete with english plates) and ate the worst hamburgers in the world at Pat's Place.
Back at Mrs McDonalds Guest House, we shivered the night away beneath our nylon sheets and reconvened about 10.00 am. in the gloomy pub. Martin the tour manager had some vitamin C powder and was tipping it into our Guinness in an attempt to keep us alive, but the landlord threw us out saying that he wasnt have any filthy drug-taking pop groups in his pub. He knew we were a pop-group because he knew all the band's fathers, and anyway, he had watched them on the telly. Not having the energy to burn it down or do anything sensible, we left quietly and climbed back into the bus for the drive through the fog to the first gig. Billed as a warm-up, it was at a big pub called The Golden Pheasant in a place called Lisnarick. It was next to a farm. This was important mainly because the farmer owned it. His name was Patrick. Most people were called Patrick if I remember right.
Eyeing the pile of orange boxes that Joe called his PA with some nervousness, I recall asking Patrick where we might find some power for the lights. He pointed at a 13 amp socket on the wall. "No" I said. "We need power for the lights". "Aye" he replied. "That there's fine for lights. We had the Christmas tree plugged in it only a few weeks ago".
We did the gig. I have no idea how. I have no idea how it was possible to cram that many screaming kids into The Golden Pheasant, but we did the show. And lived. I have no idea what it sounded like. You couldn't hear anything for the screaming.
Next day was Sunday. The gig was at a place called Ardboe, which actually didnt seem to exist. We drove for hours around tiny little lanes bordered by huge green hedges but all we could find was what looked like a huge cowshed. That's right. You've guessed.... So we loaded the gear in,
even did a soundcheck. Outside the the cowshed was a graveyard full of immaculately kept gravestones inscribed with the names of IRA men killed fighting the Brits. There was nobody around except a man called Patrick. Patrick was very cool. He never said a word.
On Sunday's in Northern Ireland you cant get a drink. The Protestants have made drinking illegal, so the Catholics make a point of getting drunk on principle. We asked Patrick what was what. He grunted and indicated we should get in the bus. We drove for more miles through the tiny lanes, then suddenly stopped. Without saying a word, Patrick got out and disappeared. He was gone for what seemed like an eternity leaving us to peer out through the windows at the black nothingness. The darkness was total. Suddenly, Patrick returned. The darkness beside us opened up, and we drove into a big carpark full of cars. A huge black house was off to one side with no lights in any of the windows. Out we climbed and followed Patrick through a small door in the side, down some stairs, through what seemed to be a cellar and suddenly out into a bar crammed with raucous republicans singing rebel songs, playing darts and peering at the newcomers. We englishmen lost our voices immediately. I was terrified, but crates of booze arrived and we were packed off out into the night again with hearts thumping. Bandit Country. Thanks Patrick.
The gig was madness. The coaches had come from miles around. I stood on my mixer riser surrounded by a sea of delerious teenagers all of whom had been brought up to hate what my countrymen have done to Ireland. I was scared at first, but nobody cared about me. Too interested in pogoing crazily and cheerfully trying to storm the stage. The band were brilliant and eventually the exhausted crowd fell out into the night to be driven back to their farms and villages. I hope none of them ended up in that graveyard, but I guess there was little chance of avoiding it for some.
The band were staunchly apolitical in those days, pretending they were unaffected by their surroundings and refusing to write songs that exploited the Troubles. Journalists and critics analysing their material said it was about teenage hangups, adolescent musings and the insecurity of youth. The band never thought about what the songs represented. They just wrote what came out. All they knew was that Catholic bands never played Protestant towns. We did though. It was called Ballymena.
The police outriders picked the minibus up on the edge of town and escorted us into the centre. The streets along the route were decked out in Loyalist colours. Union Jacks flew from dozens of windows and many of the paving stones, even the lampposts were painted red white and blue.
The end houses of terraces had the obligatory murals depicting the deaths head in a paramiliary uniform with "No Surrender" written beneath the crossed armalite rifles. The authorities were obviously anticipating trouble and the street where the gig was to be held was blocked off by armoured personnel carriers. The Brits in their flak jackets waved the bus through without stopping us. Police escorts have their uses.
Inside the gig was just unbelievable. Loyalist insignia were everywhere. Pictures of the Queen were on every wall and the whole place was decked out in the inevitable red, white and blue. In the dressing room was a notice. "All bands shall play six bars of the national anthem at the beginning and end of their set". A truce was nervously negotiated. We couldnt deal with that at any price. Eventually it was agreed that the disco would play the six bars. Perhaps I should have been prime minister....
We were tired by then. Really tired. I remember looking at the band in the dressing room listening to the roar of the crowd before they came on stage. And I mean roar. A Protestant roar and the band was scared. We had seen the lines of ambulancemen outside and up the stairs with their stretchers and first aid kits. We were all scared, but we went out there. When the strains of those six bars of the Queen died away and they climbed on stage the noise was incredible. Somehow they got plugged in and set off into the first of their string of hit songs. Utter chaos. Unbelievable exuberance. By the third song they were playing brilliantly. It was possibly the best show they ever did. Nobody got hurt. Afterwards, we were not quite sure whether the authorities were pleased or not, but we got out of town anyway.
There was one more show after that if I remember correctly. It had seemed an interminable fortnight. I dont remember anything about that last show though. What I do remember is arriving back in Derry at 4 in the morning and climbing wearily and thankfully between Mrs McDonalds nylon sheets. The end of the tour.
I was awoken at 5 by stones hitting the window. Throwing them was a pop star whose face was then decorating thousands of teenage bedroom walls. Falling downstairs we were told that there had been an accident with the truck. Everyone was OK, but we needed to sort it out. Back we climbed into the minibus and back down the road we drove. 30 miles away through the gloom we found the truck on it's side in a ditch. All Irish ditches come complete with Irish streams, and this one was pouring in through the front of the truck, flowing through the gear, and out through the back. Stood next to it was Joe. Joe had fallen asleep at the wheel. While nobody cared about the truck, Joe needed the gear to do a gig the following evening with an Irish pub band somewhere down some tiny green lane. So we spent the next hours emptying the gear out of the truck and running it back to Derry in the back of the minibus where it was stashed in various front rooms (including Mrs McDonalds) to dry. We got it all out in the end and a big crane came, lifted the truck out of the ditch, plonked it on the road, and declared it a write-off. Joe hired another, collected his gear from the various houses, waved us goodbye and set off to do his beloved pub band.
Joe's pub band was called U2. They still are. Joe still mixes their sound. But they rarely do pubs these days.... I hear however, that they still love Ireland.
[The Undertones are still regularly touring and performing to a loyal fan-base. The Undertones De Montfort Hall, Leicester 1978 is still my favourite live gig ever (and I've seen U2 play live twice, the first time also before they were famous at the Lyceum Sheffield with an audience of about 200 - circa 1980
Oliver Reavey ]
#Undertones #Carl Reavey #Ireland #U2