Question about Horslips… August 14, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture.trackback
I see Horslips play the NCH this month with an orchestra.
Horslips play two nights accompanied by the Orchestra of the National Concert Hall with stunning new arrangements by Golden Globe nominee Brian Byrne.
I think there are tickets left… Anyone seen them in that context? What’s it like and is it worth going to?
I’ve nothing against Horslips, but any gig listing which includes the words accompanied by an orchestra sends shivers of fear down my back.
Yeah, that’s my initial response too.
And given that Horslips already dressed a bit like Spinal Tap back in the day…
And were influenced by prog in their early days… Uh-oh.
Ah come on people – Horslips were a decent group who were the first to mix together traditional Irish music and rock and did it very effectively.
I can see an orchestra working very well with the music from the Book of Invasions.
Come on – enjoy -
I saw them in 1977. Does that count?
I organised a concert for them in the West of Ireland around the same time. Over 1000 people turned up. I made a nice few bob from it.
they where on something a while back on RTE with an orchestra may have been the late late show or not, what ever it was remember thinking it sounded alright.
Yeah, a great band. Okay. Might take the plunge.
I have the riff from ‘Dearg Doom’ on a Sean O’Riada record somewhere in my vaults. It was an O’Riada album with the RTE concert orchestra I think.
It’s the O Riada Sa Gaiety album, with Ceoltoiri Cualann, initially the precursor of the Chieftains though by the time of the album both groups existed. The group included the Irish David Attenborough Eamon De Buitlear on accordion. The riff is in the opening seconds of the first number, Marcshlua Ui Neill.
Pop culture fans will also find on the album Mna Na hEireann, a hit for The Christians as Words (I think), Do Bhi Bean Uasal, or Carrickfergus memorably recorded by Bryan Ferry, and Marbhna Luimni, a tune which was used, uncredited as far as I remember, as the theme tune to the excellent Coen Brothers film Millers Crossing.
An excellent album though its somewhat stately sound with O Riada’s harpsichord and Sean O’Se’s singing giving things a kind of classical feel would give pause to anyone who’s bought into the idea of O’Riada as patron saint of the trad/rock fusions to come. He wasn’t actually much of a guitar fan.
Here’s the Dearg Doom riff.
Marbhna Luimni.
Carter Burwell’s Miller’s Crossing theme.
Both great.
Of course this isn’t the first time an American based composer has used music from another culture to write a tune of infinite soulfulness which conjures up a haunting and poignant atmosphere of existential regret.
Ah sure why not.