Irish men of a certain age, brace yourselves
Posted on October 29, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Entertainment.
Leslie Dowdall is playing The Brogan Inn in Bandon soon!
Pause, little shudder of excitement, continue.
For those of you too young to remember, Leslie was to many Irish men who are now in their late thirties, the 1980’s equivalent of Jessica Alba. I’m not sure if Hot Press had pull-out posters of her, but they should have. She sang with a band called In Tua Nua who were famous for 6 months in Grangemockler (five miles from Windgap).
I’ve no idea how she has aged and for some reason I can only picture her in my head wearing a big heavy coat rather than anything sexy. This was rural Ireland twenty years ago.
The signs for the gig actually say “Ex-In Tua Nua”. Is this the equivalent of Pat Rabbitte’s election signs saying “ex-Sinn Fein The Workers Party”? No, they weren’t too bad really, they just never grew beyond Ireland.
Thinking of her brought to mind “Cactus World News”. These guys went ballistic in Ballyhale overnight around the same time and I’ll never forget my friend Shaun stating categorically that they would be bigger than U2. When they disappeared without a trace after the first single, the reason given was that they were purely a studio band and had never gigged. Ah bless, the innocence of the 20th Century. If only they’d had MySpace back then.
If baby wasn’t due very soon, I think us auld pair would head out to the gig for a reminisce.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, YouTube is the greatest website ever. They have a clip of her in action! The spectacles weren’t that rose tinted.
UPDATE 1: Looks like we may have missed it, I found something on MySpace saying it was on the 20th. Damn.
UPDATE 2: Holy cactus batman, they have clips of Cactus World News on YouTube too. Check out “The Bridge” which was their only real hit.
UPDATE 3: There is still time! According to her web-site the gig is on Nov 24th. She has also gone all cool and done a MySpace page.
Technorati Tags: Leslie+Dowdall, In+Tua+Nua, Cactus+World+News, Pat+Rabbitte
11 Replies to "Irish men of a certain age, brace yourselves"
conor on October 30, 2006
So bad it’s almost good.
Does the “Clonmel” National Song contest mean that there is more than one?
Des on October 30, 2006
What a pleasant blast from the past.
Bill on November 1, 2006
Ah, the memories, the memories… Standing in the cold outside Rainbow Records in Carlow in my school uniform waiting for a Debbie Harry wannabee to show up and autograph the sleeve of my newly bought cassette tape. It had a dirty brown cover. Didn’t it have a dirty brown cover?
conor on November 2, 2006
Jaysus I can’t remember what the cover of the last White Stripes album looks like, let alone one from the 1980’s. I wonder did I hold on to all my old tapes in the attic or did I decide to bin them at some point in the 90’s?
I had one HMV bargain-bin tape that I bought around 1988 which was Hendrix playing live in some club in LA. Dreadful quality but all of a sudden Jim Morrison staggers blind drunk onto stage and improvises a session with him. Awful music, awesome scene.
JD on November 9, 2006
I actually dropped into the Brogan Inn in Bandon the week before Lesley et pals were due to play, to check out the posters. In Tua Nua played one of the UCC Cowpuncher Ball gigs in City Hall, Cork in 1987 (I think). She collaborated on a few projects after the demise of In Tua Nua, she also had a brief scare with cancer and has been recoeding on and off (so I’m led to believe). The gig in the Brogan was with the lead singer of Stocktons Wing, another racous Irish band of the ’80s.
A buddy of mine has a VHS copy of the RTE footage of Self Aid concert in the RDS from ‘85 or ‘86 and it is worth getting a look at. Those Nervous Animals, Cactus World News, etc
conor on November 9, 2006
If I got my hands on a vid of Self Aid, I could use my WinTV PVR to capture it and we could chop it into 10 minute bites and upload it to YouTube!
I think d’wife was at Self Aid all those years ago. I just watched it on the telly.
Ach forget that first bit, there are a bunch of clips on YouTube already.
JD on November 9, 2006
I checked out the YouTube! Cactus World News clips after I posted the above – legendary!
My greatest memory for a concert was travelling from Cork to Dublin in June (I think) in 1985 to attend the U2 concert in Croker. REM, The Alarm, UB40 etc were support acts! Brilliant day out. Innocence at 16yrs! More recently was in 2001 (again a guess) in the Olympia in Dublin, to see Paul Weller unplugged. Brilliant. Since moving from Dublin back to Cork city in the past 3 years and now to Bandon myself and the missus have gotten lazy re. searching out live music. More effort required in the New Year, methinks.
conor on November 9, 2006
Oh I’ve a feeling wifey may have been at the 1985 gig too as she was a U2 fanatic.
I never really liked The Jam but Paul Weller has done some great stuff since.
Graham on December 8, 2006
In Tua Nua did grow beyond Ireland! I found them in 87 as it were and I remember going to see them gig at Newcastle Uni in October/November 1988, it was great! It was a shame that it seemed to peter out after that.
JD on December 12, 2006
Those of you residing in Bandon may be interested to note that a little bird in the Brogan Inn told me that Alison Krauss may be playing soon in the back bar. Her band (Union Station) are the job! Off the soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? the George Clooney song is actually sung by one of her band (“I am a man of constant sorrow”).
I have many thousands of pieces of useless trivia…
JD.
Frank on October 30, 2006
Don’t worry Conor, you can see her in Clonmel on Thursday…
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.clonmelnationalsongcontest.com/ld11a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.clonmelnationalsongcontest.com/festival.htm&h=240&w=150&sz=15&hl=en&start=13&tbnid=-ejxKnr7ExdiLM:&tbnh=110&tbnw=69&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dleslie%2Bdowdall%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN
I know, I know, I really should learn how to insert hyperlinks…
Seem to remember something about Haugheys son being in Cactus World News.
On the subject of music, did you hear that Albert Weismann died the other day in Chicago aged 89?
He was the guy who invented the Hokey Cokey.
Apparently his funeral had to be delayed as they had trouble getting him into the coffin.
They tried putting his left leg in and it all went downhill from there….