Horslips on TG4's 'Ardán'

Horslips to perform live on TG4 tribute show

The 'Ardán Horslips Special' will celebrate Horslips' contribution to Irish music with band members Barry Devlin, Jim Lockhart, Eamon Carr, Johnny Fean and Charles O'Connor live in studio.

The programme will feature live performances from Liam Ó Maonlaoi, world renowned piper Eoin Duignan, 70s Celtic rockers Mushroom plus a pre-recorded tribute from Irish fusion group Kíla.

The highlight of the show will be the tracks that Horslips themselves perform live on the night.

More at the link.

MUSHROOM!!!! I've like so-o-o-o wanted to hear this band of myth and legend! And Eoin Duignan! Awesome.

This is going to be totally cool.

Horslips on RTE's Other Voices TONITE

Sharing vocal duties, Barry Devlin (bass), Seán Fean (lead guitar) Eamon Carr (drums), Charles O'Connor (violin, mandolin) and Jim Lockhart (flute, tin whistle, keyboards) performed their first electric set in OVER 25 YEARS last December. Tonight, on the current season of the critically acclaimed Other Voices, this fantastic moment in Irish rock history will be shown on RTE 2.

After that, the rest of the world -- and that includes me -- will be able to watch online at the Other Voices Archive Site.

And don't forget tomorrow's live web chat with Barry Devlin and Jim Lockhart. Submit your questions online now.

Other Voices Fourth Season Begins

James Blunt and The Walls live from Dingle

THE fourth series of RTÉ’s Other Voices series will make a welcome return to the screens this week. The music series filmed last December at St James’s Church in Dingle begins this Wednesday on RTE 2.

It has become one of the most celebrated events in the musical calendar and this year was no exception with 32 Irish and international acts, descending on the Kerry town to take part.

Bell X1, Rufus Wainwright, Hal and Horslips were among the acts that took to the stage in the 70-seater venue.

The popularity of the series is due to the variety of musicians from different backgrounds playing a diversity of styles and sounds in the intimate setting of the 200-year-old church.

Presented again this year by John Kelly, the show will run for nine weeks until the end of March. Kelly, who presents The View on RTE 1, said there were so many great moments.

“José Gonz·lez singing Kylie was one. But there were far too many to mention. Musicians mixed, friendships were made and who knows what collaborations lie ahead,” he said.

More at link.

Other Voices Official Site

Stay tuned for news on the online chat with Barry Devlin and Jim Lockhart!

"The Best and Oldest Furniture"

HORSLIPS "Horslips Live" review on Prog Archives.com

For guitar fans, though, it is Furniture that stands out. A beautiful song written by keboardist/piper Jim Lockhart about growing up and leaving home, it is alchemically transformed into a masterpiece by Lockhart's mournful flute intro, CHarles O'Connor's hypnotic mandolin playing and Fean's heart-wrneching solo, first a resigned lament, then a scorching, pounding on the heart in the crescendo. It would be the finale for any other band, but not Horslips. After lightweight versions of Can't Fool the Beast and More Than You Can Chew, Eamonn Carr's shimmering cymbals herald the greatest Irish rock track ever, Dearg Doom...

More at the link. And who wrote this, I may ask? (And I ask with a great deal of fondness for the writer!)

"In every doorway stands heart's desire"

I said that the call was only going to be for three songs...but everyone knew I'd stay online for the whole set. Which was:

Faster Than The Hound (we came in...)
King of the Fairies
Sword of Light*
The Power and the Glory
Rocks Remain**
The Man Who Built America***
Fantasia (My Lagan Love)****
Furniture
Dearg Doom

encore with

Guests of the Nation!!!(this is where...)

Then I was talking briefly with Barry Devlin. Who knows what we said to each other? Then Barry up on the stage saying something. Then Charles: "I think you were better than us actually." Then Johnny (I think) "These boys were rockin'!!!" Then Jim Lockhart went into a thoughtful, well-reasoned monologue that was drowned out in the HORSLIPS clap, clap, clap! chant which led into the very band themselves performing the song that will now always make me think of Jim Nelis: Furniture.

*Long story short: this is the first song by Horslips that had me turn to my husband and say 'Wait just a minute...this group had it going ON!'

**Earlier today, when listening to The Book of Invasions -- an album that the Tribute Band performed in its entirity last April at the CBS school, Omagh -- I was thinking 'here's a really beautiful Horslips song, but not always the first one that people will mention. We should hear it more.'

***Each day when I go to work, I pass by the grand 19th century edifice that the Pacific Railroad built for itself on One Market Street. That railroad. That trans-continental railroad. Those golden nails and silver bars. The one particular golden spike was driven into the ground at Promontory Utah in 1869. I'll understand that the international audience will not realize that this momentus event was just barely four years after the assasination of an American president and the end of a bitter, divisive internal struggle over whether we were going to be a cohesive country or not. Four score and seven years ago...But from April 14, 1865 to May 10, 1869, those silver bars were laid with haste across a vast expanse of wild land not yet even 'ours'. Ruthless and determined men like Stanford, Huntington, Crocker, Hopkins - hotels, banks, colleges and state parks bear their names to this day. But what of the men who were doing the actual work on the tracks and the rails? Well...they've got a helluva great rock song for themselves!

****McGinley Og!!! Hope you were there! And if you weren't: can we meet up this February!?!

History of Horslips Exhibition Crowd is BIG!!!!

Just checked in with my inside sources! Lots of people and three members of Horslips themselves were just arriving as I called. (Johnny Fean, Jim Lockhart, Charles O'Connor) Ryan O'Sullivan (who I owe some money to now...) also there.

On the CD ROM E:DRIVE - The Book of Invasions

I'm halfway through the process of getting a 7 day online subscription to the Irish Times online and will have some excerpts from articles about the Exhibition shortly.