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The North shall rise up

Northern Ireland’s rock scene is bursting at the seams with great new talent. Plus, why commentators are attempting to re-write history on Iraq.

Eamonn McCann, 16 Jul 2007

Small but massive Glasgowbury is set to shudder the Sperrins on July 21. Everybody should be there.

Glasgowbury is the soul-child of Paddy Glasgow, local hero, singer-songwriter and cultural proselytiser, who willed the event into being in the summer of 2000 to promote proper bands and raise funds for the Ulster Cancer Foundation, www.ulstercancer.org, whence, since, it has grown and grown.

The ’07 line-up features 40 acts from Northern Ireland, plus a couple of aliens from faraway lands like Donegal. Positive proof there’s nowhere as hubbubing with genius and thrill as the North.

Chic Lisburn hobo Duke Special headlines, fresh from his sensational Ulster Orchestra date at the Waterfront which gob-smacked the grandees of Belfast. This is the first time in history that the words “Lisburn” and “chic” have appeared in the same sentence, a measure of the transcendent magic of the man.

Oppenheimer: soft-spoke Belfast duo, slick, sweet melodies and fuzz-box rasp, currently sound-tracking the implausible antics of Ugly Betty. They include Hunter S. Thompson, Stephen McCauley and the movies among intriguing influences.

Stuart Bailie, who knows what he’s talking about, says Cat Malojian “carry a hint of remorse, like the scratchy feeling of Sunday’s best shirt.” Come along and ask Stuart what he’s talking about. All I know is that the Lurgan pair’s ‘Life Rolls On’ sounds like tracks you’ve never heard from The Band.

Derry’s Skruff have been pole-axing the Waterloo Street sin-set for the past couple of years with gleefully-hurled slabs of grunge-ska. Manager Colum Eastwood tells me “grunge-ska” makes no sort of sense, but what would he know, being a SDLP councillor? Come to Glasgowbury, make your own mind up.

Homegirl heroine Charlotte Dryden says Belfast three-piece In Case Of Fire are “staring in the face of commercial music so intensely, that it’s buckling, blinking and running away screaming for its mammy.” After the last time, there’s no way I’m giving her an argument.



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Eamonn McCann

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