Horslips keyboard player Jim Lockhart can’t actually remember the last time Horslips played in Dingle. But on their recent visit to the Kerry town to record their slot for the Other Voices series, he met one fan who had very fond memories of the occasion. His Horslips cohort Barry Devlin also vividly recalls being there.
For Jim however, Horslips’ hundreds of concerts have blurred into one: “For me, all those gigs from way back then are now just one big blur. But Devlin remembers them all better than the rest of us. It was great to meet a fan who could confirm that we had indeed played Dingle.”
This time around at least, Horslips’ visit to Kerry is likely to lodge in Lockhart’s memory. It was, after all, the first time the band had played a full-on electric gig together for 25 years.
“We arrived in Dingle on the Saturday early for rehearsals and we didn’t leave until late on Tuesday,” he recalls. “It was a truly magical experience. There were no bad vibes at all, and all the crew and the other acts were a treat to meet and to work with. You only need one bad apple to spoil it for everybody else, but there wasn’t a hint of that at all.”
I wondered if, despite having regrouped for the recent Rollback album, there might be specific difficulties about getting the band getting it together again on stage after such a long lay-off.
“I was amazed to discover that it was really like riding a bike," he laughs. "It was a case of adjusting a level here, changing a tone there. It all came together straight away. Of course Johnny [Fean, Horslips’ virtuoso guitarist] is still playing regularly. I expected the rest of us to find it more difficult. But it wasn’t."
One might think that playing that first gig in front of a small audience in a tiny venue might also be more than a little intimidating. Not a bit of it.
“It was a very warm experience,” Lockhart enthuses. “Once we got started, it was like we’d been gigging all the time. But the venue and the town and the general good vibe meant that it was quite unlike any gig we ever did.”
Given that he works as a producer with 2FM, Jim was obviously not fazed by any of the new technology that confronted the group: “There were only a couple of small things that were different from the old days. Otherwise it seemed remarkably like a regular Horslips gig”
The band contributed a half hour set consisting of six songs: “We did ‘The Man Who Built America’ and ‘Furniture’ from Rollback, and ‘Rescue Me’ which I think we recorded on the Short Stories – Tall Tales album, although I could be wrong there! We did ‘Trouble With A Capital T’, ‘Dearg Doom’ and finished with ‘Shakin’ All Over’ and it was really enjoyable to do."
Lockhart is somewhat reticent to proclaim the reunion an outstanding success, however: “I’ve worked on a lot of festival gigs for 2FM with Ian Wilson and Dave Fanning, and sometimes the sound you get from the sound desk can differ from the feel you get of the live sound out front. So I’ll hold fire on any conclusions until I see the actual programme myself."
Jim’s enthusiasm for Horslips has clearly been fired by the Other Voices show. Can fans look forward to a long term reunion?
“I’d love to do a proper tour, but it's a question of logistics,” he proffers. “Johnny still plays a lot and Charles [O’Connor, fiddle/ concertina player] does some gigs, but the rest of us have real jobs. So finding times when we could all arrange to be available might be difficult. But maybe it’s not impossible.”
Such a positive response will give fans hope that a full-tilt reunion is in the offing. But in the meantime there’s that history-making Other Voices TV show to look forward to.