Some days will stay a thousand years.
Some pass like the flash of a spark.
Who knows where all our days go?
It is generally accepted by the people of Ireland of all cultural backgrounds (and indeed the broader international diaspora across Europe, North America and Australasia) that our island home is a uniquely blessed land of deep soulfulness, rich character and staggering physical beauty - albeit just a wee bit mad in all sorts of happily benign and violently malign respects.
This was encapsulated for me around five years ago when I was living in North London. One night on the way home from another miserable day of work - dealing yet again with overinflated egos and general drudgery for a relative pittance - I left the Overground train for the local bus service. As I sat there during the painfully slow journey up a steep winding hill of Ponzi-driven multi-million pound properties towards residual domestic sanity- and with my eyes glazed over with physical tiredness and world weariness - I noticed some graffiti written on the plastic backing of the seat in front of me. It boldly proclaimed Jimmy From Belfast.
Having recently endured a fruitless six month search for employment upon the deeply stagnant economic landscape of Northern Ireland - and thus being exiled for the second time around from the Emerald Isle in pure post-modern fashion - I would probably hesitate from embracing the sentiments expressed in that song by Derry's Phil Coulter Thank God That This Was My Life. In fact whereas in more cynical days I would consider the lyrics of Planxty's Irish folk classic Emigrant's Farewell to Ireland to be a wee bit hackneyed to the point of snigger-inducing parody, the fact remains that the diabolical collapse of social mobility and financial security today across the British Isles makes it sound like nothing more than highly incisive journalistic reportage.
At the same time however I can definitely relate to some of the moving commentaries towards the end of the political crime writer Martin Dillon's 2017 autobiography Crossing The Line regarding the strange hold that Ireland has on the memories of those long departed from its soil. These being very deeply fused together on an emotional plane, complicated in their makeup because of the national political conflict and associated with a myriad of historical touch points relating to family and community life.
Following on from my last post on The Starjets and their classic Power Pop single Shiraleo, I have been giving some thought lately to some of the most memorable times that particularly stand out from my youth in Ulster. Two events sprung to mind immediately - strangely enough both from Wednesday nights in winter during the Eighties and both emplaced along the Lisburn Road in South Belfast.
This roughly two mile long thoroughfare stretches from the fervently Unionist Sandy Row district - as namechecked in Van Morrison's 1968 Madame George - and up to the now-closed King's Hall in Balmoral where many famous artists performed at the acoustically-challenged venue including Mario Lanza, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Nirvana. On the way the road passes Windsor Park international football stadium where George Best played eighteen times for his country. The Lisburn Road was the actual route that King William III took through Belfast in 1690 following his landing on the Carrickfergus shore and on towards battle at the River Boyne in Meath.
This roughly two mile long thoroughfare stretches from the fervently Unionist Sandy Row district - as namechecked in Van Morrison's 1968 Madame George - and up to the now-closed King's Hall in Balmoral where many famous artists performed at the acoustically-challenged venue including Mario Lanza, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Nirvana. On the way the road passes Windsor Park international football stadium where George Best played eighteen times for his country. The Lisburn Road was the actual route that King William III took through Belfast in 1690 following his landing on the Carrickfergus shore and on towards battle at the River Boyne in Meath.
On Wednesday 17th November in 1982 I attended Windsor with a handful of mates - and of course 25,000 others - to watch Northern Ireland surely be thrashed by holders West Germany in the European Championship qualifiers. With regard to Billy Bingham's glorious period in charge of the overperforming Eighties international squad this set of fixtures sits between the 1982 and 1986 World Cup Final appearances in Spain and Mexico. The seven year light flight of football glory had commenced with the the 1979-80 British Home International victory and would incorporate winning the final tournament for the same trophy in 1983-84.
Throughout the bitterness and violence of the Troubles years the international team were mixed in religious persuasion though the crowd back in the Eighties was fiercely partisan in a very militant and vocal Loyalist respect. Whatever ethical jarring this dichotomy clearly represents in hindsight within Irish sporting history, the atmosphere at Windsor back in those days as a rule was highly animated and engaged to say the least. When Billy Bingham later recalled the events of that cold winter night he noted how the German stars on their preliminary pitch inspection - players of the sophisticated gilt-edged ilk of Rummenigge, Littbarski and Matthaeus - were immediately disconcerted by the downpour over bitter oul Belfast and the then-dilapidated condition of the stadium.
As to what I can remember of that night ...well I definitely recall the miserable marrow-chilling rainfall on the Spion Kop as a given, some deeply nasty scatological chants from the crowd directed towards the Bundesrepublik Deutschland goalkeeper Harold Schumacher and of course the earthquake roar upon Ian Stewart's 18th minute goal which won the match. Even though blurry footage of the game is available online I still think back to a sound file of the goal on an old unsophisticated Northern Ireland football website which captured the supporters' reaction to crystal clear perfection against Jackie Fullerton's BBC commentary. I used to share it with workmates in London just for the Wall of Sound audio sensation alone and to let them know I was actually there. Although little of the football action on the night itself remains in my memory I can never forget the crowd response of demented release and utter disbelief as the moon pinballed back and forth overhead, black crows fell dead from the Belfast sky and logic and perception shifted tectonically across time and space.
Northern Ireland alas did not reach the 1984 finals of the European Championships despite winning in turn against West Germany the following November - one of the most extraordinary achievements in modern British international football history. They ended Group 6 runners-up on goal difference with an earlier scoreless draw against mighty Albania in Tirana providing their statistical downfall. The players capped in the two German ties included goalkeeping legend Pat Jennings, 1982 World Cup heroes Gerry Armstrong and Billy Hamilton, future Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill, Sammy McIlroy the last Busby Babe, Manchester United icon Norman Whiteside who scored in Hamburg and the late Noel Brotherston of Spurs and Blackburn Rovers, The latter is still remembered with much affection today by the fanbase for both his moments of sizzling Brazilian craftsmanship on the wing, scoring the winning goal against Wales to take the British Championship trophy back to Ireland for the first time since 1914 and for that legendary Ulster receding ginger hairline.
Throughout the bitterness and violence of the Troubles years the international team were mixed in religious persuasion though the crowd back in the Eighties was fiercely partisan in a very militant and vocal Loyalist respect. Whatever ethical jarring this dichotomy clearly represents in hindsight within Irish sporting history, the atmosphere at Windsor back in those days as a rule was highly animated and engaged to say the least. When Billy Bingham later recalled the events of that cold winter night he noted how the German stars on their preliminary pitch inspection - players of the sophisticated gilt-edged ilk of Rummenigge, Littbarski and Matthaeus - were immediately disconcerted by the downpour over bitter oul Belfast and the then-dilapidated condition of the stadium.
As to what I can remember of that night ...well I definitely recall the miserable marrow-chilling rainfall on the Spion Kop as a given, some deeply nasty scatological chants from the crowd directed towards the Bundesrepublik Deutschland goalkeeper Harold Schumacher and of course the earthquake roar upon Ian Stewart's 18th minute goal which won the match. Even though blurry footage of the game is available online I still think back to a sound file of the goal on an old unsophisticated Northern Ireland football website which captured the supporters' reaction to crystal clear perfection against Jackie Fullerton's BBC commentary. I used to share it with workmates in London just for the Wall of Sound audio sensation alone and to let them know I was actually there. Although little of the football action on the night itself remains in my memory I can never forget the crowd response of demented release and utter disbelief as the moon pinballed back and forth overhead, black crows fell dead from the Belfast sky and logic and perception shifted tectonically across time and space.
Northern Ireland alas did not reach the 1984 finals of the European Championships despite winning in turn against West Germany the following November - one of the most extraordinary achievements in modern British international football history. They ended Group 6 runners-up on goal difference with an earlier scoreless draw against mighty Albania in Tirana providing their statistical downfall. The players capped in the two German ties included goalkeeping legend Pat Jennings, 1982 World Cup heroes Gerry Armstrong and Billy Hamilton, future Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill, Sammy McIlroy the last Busby Babe, Manchester United icon Norman Whiteside who scored in Hamburg and the late Noel Brotherston of Spurs and Blackburn Rovers, The latter is still remembered with much affection today by the fanbase for both his moments of sizzling Brazilian craftsmanship on the wing, scoring the winning goal against Wales to take the British Championship trophy back to Ireland for the first time since 1914 and for that legendary Ulster receding ginger hairline.
Two years after watching what still remains Northern Ireland's greatest home victory I attended an incredible performance by Big Country at the King's Hall on Wednesday 19th December 1984.
The Celtic rock group were formed by Scottish guitarist Stuart Adamson following his departure from The Skids whose own incredible creative output from 1978 to 1981 is still held in awe today - from Open Sound through to Fields, across four albums and with three singles reaching the UK Top Twenty. Big Country would in turn release eight albums between 1983 and 1999 not including the Restless Natives soundtrack - they never featured any Skids material in their concert sets.
The existent appeal towards the music produced by Big Country is qualified to an extent by the questionable fashion styling and fundamentally naff marketing of the Eighties and some terrible misproduction affecting their mid-period releases. Yet in the earlier stages of their career with The Crossing and Steeltown albums they received similar critical appreciation as that devolving to Simple Minds, U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen. These two albums reached number 3 and number 1 on the album charts in Britain. Their 1993 The Buffalo Skinners is also a fantastic collection of engaging guitar rock and certainly their third great album.
Big Country's music at its best touched upon genuinely universal themes of maintaining self-respect and hope in the middle of struggle and deflation. Likewise Adamson's lyrics stand as a vital contemporary commentary on the violent and brutal death of industrial Britain - surely the single most important historical factor underpinning the self-perpetuating social meltdown of today and the staggering disconnectivity with the recent past we can now sense constantly.
The December 1984 concert in Belfast was the first time I had seen the group - I subsequently saw them again at Belfast's Avoniel leisure centre on The Seer tour (they played the previous night at the Templemore sports complex in Derry), supporting David Bowie at Slane in the Irish Republic (some miles directly west of the Boyne battle site) and then at London's Hammersmith Odeon and Town and Country Club.
From what I can gather online the group had played at Queens University Belfast in July 1983 and then a further nine times in Northern Ireland in their original lineup after the two concerts I attended - Derry and Belfast in January 1989, Cookstown and the Belfast Mandela Hall in November 1991, Belfast again in April 1993, Belfast Limelight in May 1994, the Ulster Hall in Belfast in September 1995, the Limelight again in August 1996 and lastly the Belfast Waterfront in May 2000 during the Final Fling tour. The group's wonderful off-the-cuff electric rendition of the Scottish folk song KIlliekrankie was recorded during a soundcheck by Ulster Television prior to that 1991 Mandela Hall gig. They also played many concerts in the Irish Republic during this period in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Dundalk, Tralee, Waterford, Limerick and the Thurles Festival in Tipperary.
The King's Hall concert during their Steeltown tour was an extraordinary night of pure passion, soul and exhilaration that was further dynamised by the absolutely wild reaction they received from the crowd. I have read online comments in the past from their former manager that staff at the venue claimed the crowd noise that night surpassed even the regular world boxing championship bouts that were held there. The Big Country set included their raft of four consecutive hit singles in Fields of Fire (with throws within their extended live working to The Jam's Boy About Town, Aerosmith's Walk This Way and The Clash's Should I Stay Or Should I Go?), In A Big Country, Chance and Wonderland. It also included the extraordinary Just A Shadow - a song which in its content prefigured the horrendous epidemic of male mental illness which would affect so many in the fractured and misfiring century ahead.
I always remember one point during the concert when the hall lights came up during the instrumental military-style guitar-and-drum passage in the middle of Where The Rose Is Sown. Even at this career point where the group were leading commercial players in British rock, I still recall the look on Adamson's face as he gazed out at a literal sea of unrestrained human joy with what seemed like total amazement. Over the years I got to see some wonderful concert performances including Prince, Tom Petty, The Clash, Rush and The Rolling Stones but I will never but ever forget that night in Belfast. It remains for me the greatest concert I ever saw - let alone the most ecstatic crowd reaction - though the memory is always tinged with sadness as to the outplay of Adamson's life. This also casts a terrible gloss of melancholy over some of his later songs such as You Dreamer, Alone, Dive Into Me and particularly My Only Crime.
Stuart Adamson - who was born to Scottish parents in Manchester and grew up in the Kingdom of Fife - certainly had huge pride in his own roots within both the Celtic littoral of the United Kingdom and industrial Britain alike. Hence when The Skids were asked by a record company at one point for the title for a forthcoming compilation he replied “There's no argument over what it's called. It'll be called Dunfermline - or it won't be released “. Such words of faith, passion and a true belonging have all but disappeared now from our British and Irish folk memory.
Now one of the most complex bearings embedded within the mature spiritual condition is the acceptance that every minute of every hour a person of profound intelligence, wit, warmth, talent, fun and compassion passes from this earth. The life and soul of our human footprint is in a perpetual cycle of loss and (now extraordinary strained and malfunctioning) regeneration. The same without doubt applies to all sentient creatures - a piece of bloody roadkill that makes one instantly shudder may well once have been a vehicle for some extraordinary physical strength, functional ability or unique character. This sobering awareness of life as it is actually lived underscores how many unforgettable moments are often so fleeting in time and a combination of very unique circumstances and settings.They also most certainly lie outside the remit of extravagant financial engagement.
All three factors certainly constitute the background to those memories I have from what is now three and a half decades ago. Of both the night Northern Ireland equalled Linfield's 1970 trumping of Manchester City at Windsor to become the greatest football team on earth and when a few hundred very lucky souls got to see one of the greatest live rock acts in history literally blow the roof off the Forbidden Planet of Eighties Ulster.
Belfast may not have the architectural glory, temperate climate or effortless panache of other American or European capitals - and I personally have huge bloody reservations on the 21st Century rebranding of the city and the Ulster Troubles alike. Yet I remain cognisant that I was blessed to see and experience those moments of magic on the Lisburn Road. Many people have not been that lucky as to how the timeframes of their life coalesced while in turn others were cut short on the opportunity - as was the case for thirty wasted years in Northern Ireland because of direct human agency. One particular Stuart Adamson lyric that was often quoted after his December 2001 suicide in Hawaii reflecting:
There are only seconds of your life
that really count for anything.
All the rest is killing time.
Waiting for a train.
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