Tom Dunne: Some magic moments and a sad loss marked my 2022
Kate Bush was back courtesy of Stranger Things. (Picture: Evening Standard/Getty Images)
From a standing start you have to say, 2022 didn’t do half bad. It managed to produce the best gig I have ever been at, several of the next best, albums I will treasure, talks I will long remember and TV, Film and book moments of sublime brilliance. It is all very subjective, but these stood out:
I talked to Dana at the Dublin Bowie festival in April. She was Bowie’s girlfriend when he was 17 and already gigging. Even without Bowie, her story and that of her family are fascinating tales.
But she was with Bowie, more as a label mate by then than a girlfriend, in 1971, the year in which Bowie invented Ziggy Stardust and, by extension, himself in his multi persona magnificence.
The year 1971 in Bowie’s world is a fascinating twelve months. He becomes a dad, is losing hope and, then, goes to America. She recounted the people, the building momentum and his fragile confidence. A privilege.
I had expected a book reading but instead witnessed a powerhouse of a one man show that was funny, deeply moving and utterly riveting. It had music, it had funny stories but above all else it had Bob, Bono’s dad.
He puts this relationship at the show’s centre recounting afternoons in Finnegan’s pub in Dalkey. The relationship is light and playful, Bob remaining unimpressed by Pavarotti, Lady Di or his son’s fame.
Until Bob drops the news of his illness. That moment is like a bomb going off in the theatre. This was powerful, emotive stuff. I’m not sure that, even now, Bono has found what he’s looking for. Watch this space.
Hard to follow Peter Jackson’s Get Back, but Pistol was a joy. Before I delved in I could see from social media that even hard bitten punks, those who were there, were enjoying it. It brought great humour to proceedings without ignoring the god awful realities of the band’s lives.
It also led to me interviewing Steve Jones, an interview in which he faked my Irish accent. For a moment it was is if I was in the Roebuck Pub on the King’s Road waiting for Johnny to audition while Steve ribbed the oirish guy. “Oi,” I wanted to say, “leave it out.” Thank you, Lord.
There were a few jaw dropping come backs on 2022: Bob Dylan at 3Arena -we’ve had applauded if he just sat there reading a paper- and Joni Mitchel at Newport – wow!- but Kate’s Running Up That Hill slowly rising to number one the world over was just very, very gratifying indeed!
It gave a generation of parents the opportunity to look at their children and tell them, “I told you my music was better than yours,” whilst instantly vindicating 1980s music in general, 1980s recording techniques, 1980s production and, well our entire past lives. Thank you, Kate.
Subtitled ‘The Curious Afterlife of the Pop Star’, this is a book that has lived with me so vividly since I read the ebook, that I asked for a ‘proper’ copy for Christmas. It follows the ‘what happens next’ phase in the lives of those who have graced our radios with their music and have experienced fame as a result of it.
It is almost always a bleak experience. Some are stoical, others grateful, but some are destroyed by it. ‘Mental Health’ seems to be shooting to the top of the agenda in music with acts like Santigold pulling the plug on touring and pointing a finger at the crazy demands of music. This book serves as a timely reminder of the madness.
Seek out too Graeme Thompson’s excellent Simple Minds biography, Themes for Great Cities. Never has the heady chemistry of a band forming and setting off to take on the world ever been so wonderfully captured.
We lost many, Ronnie Spector, Terry Hall and Christine McVie, to name but three, but the passing of Cathal in May was devastating.
I have not been able to listen to the Telefis albums since. I see them listed in end of year polls but I’m not ready, and may never be, to go there yet. For the punk generation of the mid-‘80s, he was its brightest, most fiercely intelligent star. Everything else is showbands.
