THE BEAT GOES ON
NEW YORK—A SHORT HISTORY OF DERRY, IRELAND: 1688—Britain lay siege to Derry City for 105 days. 1976—The Undertones are formed. “Back in Derry, our earliest concerts, the situation that we found ourselves playing in, was for really small groups of friends in really small bars.”
Brightness On The Edge Of Derry
THE BEAT GOES ON
NEW YORK—A SHORT HISTORY OF DERRY, IRELAND: 1688—Britain lay siege to Derry City for 105 days.
1976—The Undertones are formed.
“Back in Derry, our earliest concerts, the situation that we found ourselves playing in, was for really small groups of friends in really small bars.” The Undertones’ lead singer Feargal Sharkey is explaining why there is so much friendliness between the Undertones and their fans, until he veers wildly off the subject, “But there was a lot of resentment from other bands, in that we were playing for nothing, and we were dandies, and fairly obnoxious.
“You see, bands at that stage, there were basically two types pf bands—you had the show bands, cabaret bands, playing large selections of the Top 20 in local discos. And there were the rock bands, doing Led Zeppelin covers. Nobody wrote their own songs. We didn’t care if we were a good group or nothing, we were happy just to be up there doing John [O’Neill’s songs; we were happy just to be playing.”