As Team Hot Press prepares itself for the annual trip to Stradbally, there’s one friend of the magazine who is sad to miss the Picnic; guitar legend Johnny Marr.

In Ireland for his recent gig at Leopardstown, he told us there’s plenty of reasons why he’ll be sorry to miss out on a weekend in Laois.

“The Pet Shop Boys are amazing live, as is Beck,” he notes. “And it’s a well-known fact that Chic are the greatest thing in the world and should be on everyone’s bucket-list!”

Johnny has had the privilege of working with all of the above; we imagine collaborating with Mr Hansen was quite an experience?

“I worked with him on Midnight Vultures, which was the album after Mutations, which I loved,” he explains. “I remember when I turned up there were pictures of Prince all over the studio so I was like, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing is it?’ (laughs)

“The first thing we did was a song called ‘The Doctor’ which is really good but didn’t come out for some reason. Whenever I see him he always mentions releasing it. I played on a song called ‘Milk & Honey’. It was really interesting and he was very gracious, I was grateful to be invited. We talked about doing some gigs together at some point, like having a band, but it hasn’t materialised…… yet!”

Beck and Johnny Marr; a musical power couple if ever there was one. We live in hope…