Irish rock legends Horslips have confirmed two massive gigs, their first since a very emotional swan song in 1980 in the Ulster Hall.
The band pay pre-Christmas visits to the Odyssey, Belfast (December 3) and the O2, Dublin (5). Tickets priced £33 and €49.50 respectively go on sale on Thursday July 9.
“It’ll be a Horslips concert people who saw the band back then will recognise,” says fiddle, mandolin and concertina player Charles O’Connor, “but there’ll be a few surprises as well in the form of material we may not have played live before.”
The only original member who won’t be taking to the stage is drummer Eamon Carr who’s retired from live duties, but remains a fully paid-up Horslips-er.
His place behind the kit is being taken by Johnny Fean’s younger brother Ray, a former member of Limerick outfit Tuesday Blue, and gainfully employed of late as a member of the Riverdance, Sharon Shannon Big Band and Celtic Woman entourages.
“It was kind of Eamon’s idea,” reveals bassist Barry Devlin. “We’d been trying to make this work pretty much since we did (unplugged album) Rollback in’05. Denis Desmond was very supportive of the idea of live gigs from us. And though Eamon did Ardan and Other Voices at the time, they were TV gigs and we couldn’t get bigger live concerts to happen. Finally Eamon said, ‘Look, why don’t you see if Ray Fean will do this….’”