Reborn slippy
Three decades since first setting Irish music on fire, Horslips have reformed for an acclaimed Other Voices performance. But are they back for good?
Jackie Hayden, 21 Feb 2006
Horslips keyboard player Jim Lockhart can’t actually remember the last time Horslips played in Dingle. But on their recent visit to the Kerry town to record their slot for the Other Voices series, he met one fan who had very fond memories of the occasion. His Horslips cohort Barry Devlin also vividly recalls being there.
For Jim however, Horslips’ hundreds of concerts have blurred into one: “For me, all those gigs from way back then are now just one big blur. But Devlin remembers them all better than the rest of us. It was great to meet a fan who could confirm that we had indeed played Dingle.”
This time around at least, Horslips’ visit to Kerry is likely to lodge in Lockhart’s memory. It was, after all, the first time the band had played a full-on electric gig together for 25 years.
“We arrived in Dingle on the Saturday early for rehearsals and we didn’t leave until late on Tuesday,” he recalls. “It was a truly magical experience. There were no bad vibes at all, and all the crew and the other acts were a treat to meet and to work with. You only need one bad apple to spoil it for everybody else, but there wasn’t a hint of that at all.”
I wondered if, despite having regrouped for the recent Rollback album, there might be specific difficulties about getting the band getting it together again on stage after such a long lay-off.
“I was amazed to discover that it was really like riding a bike," he laughs. "It was a case of adjusting a level here, changing a tone there. It all came together straight away. Of course Johnny [Fean, Horslips’ virtuoso guitarist] is still playing regularly. I expected the rest of us to find it more difficult. But it wasn’t."
One might think that playing that first gig in front of a small audience in a tiny venue might also be more than a little intimidating. Not a bit of it.
“It was a very warm experience,” Lockhart enthuses. “Once we got started, it was like we’d been gigging all the time. But the venue and the town and the general good vibe meant that it was quite unlike any gig we ever did.”
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