THE MIAMI MASSACRE

Although the troubles in the North had been raging since the late ’60s it was somehow assumed that musicians and entertainers were immune from direct targeting. But there had been rumours, all still unproven, that some showbands and ballad groups from the South were transporting weaponry to republican sympathisers. Whatever the background, it reached its day of reckoning on 31 July 1975 when members of the UVF ambushed the Miami Showband and murdered four members of the group. The nation was rightly shocked and the showband scene, for which the North represented lucrative pickings, never recovered.

THE STARDUST FIRE

hotpress was just four years on the road when the biggest disaster in the history of entertainment in this country took place. The Stardust Ballroom in Artane on the Northside of Dublin had hosted the occasional rock gig, as well as cabaret and disco. It was at a St. Valentine’s Day dance that catastrophe struck. The fire doors in the hall had been bolted from the inside – a measure apparently undertaken to keep people from being allowed in surreptitiously without paying. When a fire started, it escalated quickly, as flammable material that had been used in the building of the venue began to blaze. When dancers attempted to make their escape they couldn’t open the locked emergency exits. Amid scenes of panic, the conflagration took 48 lives, leaving an entire community bereft and devastated. There are those who may feel that the strict fire regultions now in place in venues all over Ireland are excessive. But anyone who saw the horror wreaked at the Stardust will know why such regulations are an essential part of the entertainment business now.

THE ROCKER PASSES ON

Although the death of Philip Lynott in 1986 came as no real surprise to scene insiders, it still caused a numbness to spread through the music community. Lynott’s career had reached an uncertain bend in the road, but there were still many who believed he could still have delivered. His unique mix of bubbling personality, cheeky rebel and all-round good bloke made him a hit with many who were even remotely familiar with his music. In the perverse nature of these things, Thin Lizzy’s music and the songs of Philo are today more popular than ever. All that would be well worth sacrificing for just the occasional glimpse of him in Grafton Street or crossing the Ha’penny Bridge.

THE DEATH OF RORY GALLAGHER

In 1995 Irish rock lost not just one of the most committed purveyors of high-octane blues-rock in the world, but a gentle, humble man who still had much to offer when he was taken from us. Our only, meagre, consolation, is the superb repackaging of Rory Gallagher’s impressive legacy by his brother Donal, a catalogue that shows his unpretentious approach to the blues, inspired by his early influences from Lonnie Donegan, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Woody Guthrie and his own honesty which saw him eschew the battery of effects used as crutches by lesser mortals.