The McCormick Brothers .V. U2

U2/THE BLADES/THE MODULATORS

McGonagle’s, Dublin (1979)

The level of confidence and maturity U2 have attained over the past year is quite remarkable.
Across two of their “Jingle Balls” nights in McGonagle’s, U2 ably demonstrated their cohesion as a band, which has finally freed them of the sometimes distatesful self-consciousness that used to pervade their appearances.
The songs are tighter, the musicianship excellent, and the beautifully-timed sets were propelled by the burgeoning spirit of rock ‘n’ roll abandon which U2 are now injecting into their performances. Paul Hewson... Uhh, sorry... Bono now commands the stage with a unique prescence, while Dave Evans... Uhh, sorry... The Edge stamps character into his nimble guitar playing.
Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen... Uhh, sorry... Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen are now a creative rhythm force where they were once merely competent. Together they can now make songs I’ve heard several times before – including some two Thursdays in a row – sound invigoratingly fresh. ‘In Your Hand’, ‘Speed Of Life’, ‘Concentration Cramp’, ‘Another Time, Another Place’: these are the ingredients of a classic set, and they become even more potent when coupled with (variously) Christmas decorations, a “holiday snaps” slide show and an, er, evocative silhouette show between Bono and Dave’s sister.
Praise must also be meted out for U2’s choice of support acts, The Blades (first Thursday) and The Modulators (the next).
With an incisive, well-honed brand of pop/rock redolent of The Beatles, Jam, Who and Elvis Costello amongst others, The Blades are very much a hot tip for the top. In Paul Cleary, they, like The Modulators (who demonstrated more enthusiasm than polish on their “first” gig) in Neil McCormick, boast a fine lead vocalist, who will undoubtedly establish himself as a major local force.
There will only be one or two more jingle balls in McGonagle’s. I wholeheartedly recommend you haul your hams down there!
KARL TSIGDINOS, VOL 3 no 2 (1979)

Yeah! Yeah!

Magnet bar, DUBLIN (1982)

YEAH! YEAH!’S gig in the Magnet Bar one recent Thurday evening had the atmosphere of a youth club hop, or even more intimately, a front-room house party.
Which is to say that if only a few were drawn to the Magnet, then they compensated by responding to the music with uninhibited, all-enveloping enthusiasm. (Well, they danced). And certainly Yeah! Yeah!’s music - which if I can be allowed a deliberately crude definition is of the “good time” variety – inspires a suitably abandoned reaction.
But there’s an exceedingly fine line between the ostensibly care-free and the obviously careless, and placed under more detatched, critical scrutiny – a nefarious but necessary exercise, and anyway I get paid to do it – Yeah! Yeah!’s balance and control is seen to leave a lot to be desired.
If the band’s horizons didn’t extend beyond this kind of gig, then everything would be hunky dory, but knowing lead vocalist/songwriter Neil McCormick – yes, the same, our very own, of this parish, for it is he, etc. – I don’t believe this to be true. Creatively, their ambition is always true, but their aim is right off. A song like ‘Amnesia’, for example, is both melodically sure, lyrically clever, and its intended live presentation, tactically dead-on, but all the band’s efforts will continue to come to nought unless the pivotal vocal harmonies achieve a more productive union than was the case on the night. What is potentially a memorable song sticks in the mind for all the wrong reasons.
Back-up vocalist/guitarist Ivan was at fault on other occasions too. Perhaps, as the group’s sole lead instrumentalist, he’s trying to shoulder more musical weight than he can as yet handle, but the fact remains that when he allows a note to slip through his fingers or fails to nail down a chord with anything less than complete authority, Yeah! Yeah!’s whole sound suffers as a result.
And if the Yeah! Yeah! ethos baits such critical shorthand as “good-time dance pop”, then that is neither to suggest they are one-dimensional nor simplistic. Indeed, it’s precisely because they strive to inject originality, intelligence and modest adventure into an established methodology that their mistakes clang louder, and their sloppiness is all the more disappointing.
Rehearsing, dues-paying and all the rest may sound terribly traditional, but no more than is the idea of four people getting on-stage to play music. Yeah! Yeah! need to take more time and trouble before their songs and ideas will bear deserved fruition. And before they’ll be able to move beyond the admittedly enjoyable but ultimately self-deceiving kind of gig, where the crowd is sympathetic to their mistakes.
Liam Mackey, Vol. 6, No. 6 (1982)
Shook Up

Half Moon, Putney, London (1985)

There was a palpable buzz in the Half Moon. The A& R men were out in force, mingling conspicuously with a sizeable collection of London’s bright young things.
Nobody paid much attention to Billy Connolly perched at the bar, except for a few forty-year-old trendies who hung in anticipation, on his every word. The genial Scot wasn’t there to see Shook Up – his loss. He might have witnessed a lesson in audience rapport.
Clad in Herculian-sized belts and art-deco shirts, Shook Up took the stage to yelps of approval and immediately launched into a somewhat soulful ‘Stop The World’ – quite familiar too or so it seemed. But before the show’s end, it had dawned on me that every Shook Up song hints at and alludes to a dozen favourites from yesteryear. But it’s done so well. Each song is a seamless synthesis of sounds and signatures that tug at the memory but are hard to pin down. Vince Clarke would approve.
Shook Up have catchy tunes to offer – and a great deal more. Principally there’s frontman Neil McCormick, whose wit kept the party bubbling from first to last. (“So far we’ve thrilled you with pop songs about greed, rape, addiction and lust – so now, for a change of mood, here’s one about schizophrenia.”) Brother Ivan plays a mean guitar without ever descending into axe hero cliché, while bassist Vlad completes the front row admirably. The trio’s carefully choreographed and highly eccentric stage antics proved a real crowd-pleaser, although the long shadow of Wham! was cast during the air-punching finale of ‘The Kiss’.
Comparisons are odious though – Shook Up should be taken on their own terms as a fun group who excel at putting smart lyrics to catchy tunes. They’re also eminently danceable – throughout the latter part of the gig my own view of the stage was severely impaired by the apparition of a skimpy mini-skirt which, I swear, danced before my very eyes. Even the table began to shake and it was only through sheer presence of mind that drinks were saved. Following two richly deserved encores, Shook Up finally left the stage and the mysterious “mini skirt” vanished as suddenly as it appeared. Disturbing. But not disturbing enough to detract from what was the most entertaining night’s music this hack has witnessed in a long time!
Shook Up are fun, they’re Irish and they’re going to
be BIG.
Damian Corless, Vol. 9, No. 16 (1986)

U2

TRINITY BUTTERY AND MCGONAGLES MATINEE, Dublin (1979)

It’s no secret at headquarters that I have a special spot for U2. Indeed I have no hesitation in rating them the best unrecorded band in Ireland and one whose potential is still barely tapped.
Unfortunately, circumstances weren’t the best for this review. Production of our Yearbook meant that their two recent McGonagle’s gigs passed without praise in print. They were simply the most exhilarating performances by a local band I’ve witnessed in the last twelve months. Last Saturday week, U2 played twice. The matinee was at McGonagle’s, an enterprising foray to capture the teen audience barred by licensing laws and late night opening. Unprofessionally, my clock stopped so I lost an hour, only appearing to catch the last four numbers. Neither I nor U2 were happy with the sound, but the band did succeed in their primary aim of attracting and impressing a sizeable underage contingent. They return there this weekend.
The second show was two hundred yards down the road in Trinity College, but the late arrival of the hired equipment and a hurried soundcheck weren’t the best preparation. U2 were solace for the bewildered, even if their set slumped slightly in the final third, before a racing version of ‘Street Mission’. So if the band were scrambling, it’s indicative of their growth that an average set nonetheless promotes their merits rather than exposing their failings. Partially, it’s due to Paul Hewson. Undoubtedly, the best frontman since Geldof, he’s a powerfully-charged battery of energy, and utterly unignorable. His enthusiasm is such that even a potentially pessimistic song like ‘Concentration Cramp’ does not flounder in grim negativity, he and the band trampling underfoot all those confining restrictions of school days.
Furthermore, except for one purloined Kinks riff, U2 owe no obvious debts to earlier styles. Their songs are uniquely their own, vibrant celebrations that are both direct in impact yet not so simple in style. It’s U2’s most enduring asset that they’ve taken only the ideals of the new wave, but not its licks, so that while their songs retain pop vivacity, their structures stretch towards more complex forms. They are already their own category. So many estimates of local bands end with double-edged compliments, ifs, buts and lukewarm qualifications. U2 belong to a whole other league.
- Bill Graham, Vol 2 No 17. February 8, 1979

u2

DEATH RACE 2000, DUBLIN (1979)

Death Race 2000 had passed its half-way mark when U2 took the stage to the hearty applause of the dedicated followers of fashion who had forgotten to bring sleeping bags. And the band’s rock ’n’ roll breakfast tasted just fine. With perfect posturing and dynamic delivery, Paul Hewson, straining every muscle and pulling the band forward, was always arresting. While they were confident and competent Dave Evans (guitar) and Adam Clayton (bass), belied the intermittent tendency to drag the music into the clutches of the age-old malaise of heavy metal sludge, especially on the shadily atmospheric ‘Shadows And Tall Trees’. The sound was crisp enough, but Tayto it ain’t. Yet on numbers like ‘Cartoon World’ and ‘Another Time, Another Place’ they showed enough bravado and intelligence to convince anyone that this young band has hair on its chest. ‘Street Missions’ was great. Their encore ‘Glad To See You Go’ was energetic but it suffered slightly from its slower-than-Ramones pace. Not to worry. Their own numbers and enthusiasm will see them through.

Dave Fanning reviewing the Dark Space 24-hour event in Dublin’s Project Arts Centre. Vol 2 No. 18 February 22, 1979

U2

Main HAll, RDS, Dublin (1982)

I was lost in the heart of a crowd, where recollections grow wild with fancy. Caught in a... a... landslide, a light show, a movement, a positive noise, ayee-haw, a whoopee cushion of gigantic proportions, and... Hello! Hello!... a homecoming.
This was more than a gig, but it wasn’t a party. It was the mutual celebration of an audience and a group. It was tribal in the way much rock can be but it had something more, a sense of community, which sent surges of anticipation and excitement through those present even before the group went on stage.
Four thousand people welcoming home U2, four thousand and most of them younger than me (I’m only 20!). U2 now belong to them, or rather with them. Because not only are they the only major Southern Irish success story since The Boomtown Rats, they are young. Young in the sense of being much the same age as their audience. There is no great insight involved here; it is that they are part of their audience, by birth, by sensibility, by commitment.
And so I can say this was a special occasion, but what more can I say? They were loud. They flash with a rock edge that has a rare beauty for these days, Bono breathes life, care and compassion in his exuberance, The Edge fills even a venue of these difficult proportions with the sound of guitar explorations, Adam makes mistakes and poses rock-awkwardly (but we forgive him for that). Larry is Larry and the light show is big and professional... but the spirit of the occasion went beyond all that.
In some ways it was not so different from certain gigs in the past where we watched them grow (Resurrection, hello), while in other ways it was sadly far removed from the intimate excitement of small gigs.
That’s obvious, but U2 have embraced their growth and their growing audience far more easily than most. With a shout. Shout it out.
Neil McCormIck, 22 January, 1982