Tom Dunne: My moment of revelation between Jack Charlton, Dickie Rock... and Boyzone
Jack Charlton and co celebrate after victory over Italy in the 1994 World Cup. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Why do we wake at 4am to review our progress in life? When does it start in earnest? Does anyone escape it? Are there those who sleep soundly all their lives and are reading this wondering 'what is he on about'? Are those people in the music business? No, I thought not.
This week my 4am wakening sessions were based around Nick Duerden’s excellent book, Exit Stage Left. Eoghan O’Sullivan reviewed it recently in these pages. It deals with the 'what happens next' part in the lives of those professionally ‘touched’ by pop music.
If this seems presumptive of me, if ‘Sean in Macroom’ wants to tweet a dismissive “Your life was hardly touched by music, Tom” remark, then “Steady on” I will say. I have the photos of the Hiace vans, Sean, the stamps on my passport, and the bruises on my very soul.
Music - and I will summarise Nick’s book briefly - is like a big wave. It picks you up off the beach and carries you along on an exhilarating ride. Then just as you were thinking “I like this,” it plops you down somewhere else.
This is where the hard bit starts. You may not like this new beach. People on the beach seem to know you and ask “Is that the guy who used to surf?” You tell them the wave will be back. Having surfed once you want to surf again. And, spoiler alert, the wave doesn’t come back.
At first, I found Nick’s book very reassuring. Schadenfreude might be one word for it. Pleasure derived by someone from the misfortune of others might be nine more. It does not reflect well on me but knowing I had gotten off lightly was a source of great comfort.
I had not ended up with a drug addiction, PTSD or been invited on Women’s Hour to be laughed at. I had not killed anyone or been imprisoned. My fellow bandmates had never attacked or sued me. And as Eoghan said in his article, I am still ‘at the music.’
But it was reassuring to read that even someone with the talent of Suzanne Vega had had to endure a tour where the venues were downsized as she went. Where first the set designer was let go, then the set itself, then the backing vocalists. In Ireland, we called this going on “an acoustic tour” as if we are willingly embracing the wonderful world of MTV Unplugged.
Part of the harshness of this transition from surfer to beach bum is that it’s hard to be sure when the wave has really gone away. It might be just a gap between the waves, the optimist in you argues. Write and record another album, just in case.
But the penny eventually drops. For my band Something Happens, this was an almost comical moment. It was 1994. Airplay was becoming less frequent and we’d left the Virgin label. But Big Jack was coming back from the USA where Ireland had ‘technically’ won the World Cup and we were asked to play at the Phoenix Park to welcome him home.
Part of my motivation was to meet that glorious team. Once there I made non-football fan, guitarist Ray Harmon, shake the hand of Ray Houghton. I told our Ray that “This is the man who put the ball in the English net”, and that one day he would thank me for this. The statute of limitations applies.
Dickie Rock was on before us. I thought this an odd choice, the showband era long-gone and all that. We followed him on confident that Hello Hello and Parachute would win the day. The response was good, but we’d been forced to play acoustically so it was a little muted, not the barnstormer we’d expected.
Side-stage I found myself next to Dickie. We talked music and it was such a treat. But we became aware of a noise. The audience was going crazy, girls screaming hysterically. Five lads ran on in orange tracksuits to a backing track. In ‘indie guitar music terms’ this was seven shades of naff, but I wouldn’t have said that to the screaming audience.
It was Boyzone, one of their first ever appearances just a few days after that Late Late Show appearance. Dickie looked at them and then at the screaming, adoring audience. “We’re in trouble here, Tom,” he said, knowingly. Dickie knew a wave when he saw it.
