By Jim Rowland
Often referred to as the founding fathers of Celtic rock, Horslips are one of the truly great Irish rock acts of the 1970s. Their fusion of traditional Irish music with progressive rock and hard rock made them one of the most successful bands in their homeland during the ‘70s and gained widespread acclaim overseas too. Forming in 1970 and splitting in 1980, they returned to action again in 2004 for the best part of a further decade. During both stints, Horslips made numerous recordings for the BBC both on radio and TV, and it’s those recordings that are gathered together here in this new extensive five-disc CD/DVD box set.
The very first article I ever wrote for Über Rock was a live review of Horslips at a Celtic music festival in Glasgow at the start of 2011, and I’m not sure I’ve had the chance to write about them since. That show was wonderful, and so is this box set, packed full of gems that should excite fans old and new.
The first disc here is full of vintage gems from 1973 and 1974, when the band was riding high on the back of the classic second album ‘The Tain’. Tracks from that album dominate the ‘Radio One In Concert’ recording from early 1974, as well as the tracks recorded for ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, ‘Sounds of the 70’s’ and the obscure BBC2 TV show ‘2nd House’ all in the same year. The end of the disc goes slightly further back in time to 1973 for another ‘Sounds of the 70s’ session and a wonderful John Peel session mixing ‘The Tain’ tracks with a few from the first album including the truly wonderful ‘Furniture’. These recordings really are vintage gold dust for Horslips fans. The sound quality is mostly great, with a few dips depending on the original source of some of these rare recordings.
Disc two fast forwards to another ‘Radio One In Concert’ from 1979, around the time the band had spent time trying to seriously crack America, and mixes the more recent radio-friendly hard rock tracks like ‘The Man Who Built America’ and ‘Loneliness’ with a bunch of classics from the outstanding 1976 album ‘The Book Of Invasions’. Three ‘unplugged’ tracks from a BBC NI 2010 broadcast complete the disc.
The third disc is the complete recording of the lavish 2011 performance with the Ulster Orchestra at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, in its previously unreleased BBC Radio Ulster broadcast mix. Including epic suites from the classic albums ‘The Tain’ and ‘The Book of Invasions’ alongside other fan favourites like ‘Rescue Me’, ‘Ghosts’ and the eight-minute ‘I’ll Be Waiting’, many, including the band members, view this concert as Horslips’ finest hour.
Disc four is a bonus disc, and not BBC-related. Comprising recently discovered 1979 “working mixes” of the album ‘Short Stories, Tall Tales’, recorded at Dublin’s Windmill Lane. They offer an intimate glimpse into a band in transition, shifting from the US FM rock that had influenced recent albums towards the spikier, sharper British New Wave sound. ‘Short Stories, Tall Tales’ was not a well-received album and heralded the demise of Horslips’ original tenure, but these recordings will be of interest to keen fans. Probably not the place to start for new listeners though.
Finally, the DVD is once again packed full of gems, this time of the visual variety. Several of the previous discs’ audio tracks such as the material from ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, ‘2nd House’ and the 2010 unplugged recordings, were taken from TV appearances, and here you get them again with the original TV footage, all in pristine quality. The OGWT clip of ‘Dearg Doom’ has often been seen as the BBC keep digging it out every time they do an ‘Irish Rock’ themed programme, but here you also get the much less often seen second track that was recorded, namely ‘Faster Than the Hound’. The ‘2nd House’ footage, introduced by Melvyn Bragg, is superb and expanded to include the band commentary that originally went with it, where they explain the story of ‘The Tain’.
In addition, there’s a later OGWT clip, some fan shot footage of the 2011 orchestral show, and more BBC NI footage, firstly of a collaboration with Irish folk act Ulaid and then an extensive interview with Jim Lockhart and Barry Devlin, covering the whole history of the group.
For what you get, ‘At The BBC’ appears to be retailing at a pretty decent price, and would be a worthy purchase not just for hardened fans, for whom this would be pretty essential, but also for those looking to explore or discover the music of this wonderful band.
- ‘At The BBC’ is released on 4 July.