Album Review: Horslips – At the BBC

Horslips – At the BBC is a 4CD + DVD set comprising a bumper crop of live performances, BBC TV footage and rare archival material. It all makes for a meaty, yet manageable, addendum to 2023’s 33CD 50th anniversary deluxe boxset, More Than You Can Chew.

Indeed, it is a weighty addition to Horslips’ expanding archive, which is important when you consider that this is the band that effectively invented Celtic Rock. The four CDs chart the atypical trajectory of the band from 1974, when breakthrough single ‘Dearg Doom’ smashed down the BBC door, and Horslips performed on John Peel, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Sounds Of The ‘70s.

Vocalist Barry Devlin relates, in a 2010 Radio Ulster interview (contained on Disc 2) that ‘Dearg Doom’ is a template for what a Horslips song is supposed to be – taking a well-known traditional Irish motif (in this case ‘O’Neill’s March’) and doing something different.

The story continues with the band’s return from trying to conquer America, when they played a Radio 1 In Concert set. We then fast forward to an unplugged comeback session in 2010 on BBC NI. Disc 3 presents Horslips’ unique 2011 performance with the Ulster Orchestra at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, a concert which more than a few fans and some band members reckon is their finest ever performance.

Disc 4, meanwhile, provides a rare insight into the band’s transition from US FM rock to a starker British new wave sound, with recently discovered 1979 working mixes of the album Short Stories, Tall Tales recorded at Dublin’s Windmill Lane.

The set is completed with a DVD bringing together clips from The Old Grey Whistle Test, 1974 documentary material and fan footage of two songs from the 2011 Waterfront Hall concert, synced to BBC audio. All discs are presented together with an 84-page hardback book with rare photographs and extensive liner notes by band biographer Mark Cunningham. It rounds out what is a terrific package.

8/10

Out now