talk of the 'tones

When The Undertones launched into 'Teenage Kicks' at the hotpress Uncovered gig in HQ earlier this year it was described by those who were there as one of the most spine-tingling rock moments in recent memory. A mere seventeen years after they last appeared in the city and Michael Bradley, Billy Doherty, John and Damian O'Neill were thundering through one of the greatest and simplest songs ever written with all the verve and abandon of the gawky, hormonally charged teenagers I first saw supporting The Radiators From Space on a Sunday afternoon in The Baggot Inn back in 1977.
Significantly though, the man who once called himself Pish Fish - Mr. Feargal Sharkey - was absent from this rampage down Reminiscence Road, his place on vocals having been taken by former Carrelines frontman and Today FM producer Paul McLoone.
Yet the fact that The Undertones are now an ongoing - albeit occasional - concern without Feargal's distinctive warble doesn't appear to have discommoded the Derrymen's diehard fans, and McLoone himself now appears to have settled seamlessly into the role, although he will admit that there was a moment of sheer, blinding terror on the night.
"I wasn't too bad before the gig," he says, "just the normal pre-show nerves kicking in. But when we walked out and Billy did the drum intro the sweat just ran out of me. In the ten seconds or so before I started singing I nearly shat myself. I looked out at the audience, saw just who was there and it suddenly dawned on me that they were all waiting for me to open my mouth, waiting to decide if the whole thing was a big mistake. Once I started it was fine, I could see that they were up for it, but that feeling of having everyone in the place staring at me was horrible."
Having gifted the world with thirteen singles and four albums in just over four years, The Undertones disintegrated in 1983 amid waning public interest, record company pressure and strained inter-band relations, particularly between Feargal and guitarist and chief songwriter John O'Neill. With the singer enjoying a successful if brief solo career, John and Damian O'Neill formed That Petrol Emotion while bassist Michael Bradley and Billy Doherty went back to Derry and the real world. That appeared to be that, but in the early nineties there was a reunion of sorts.
"We'd been requested by John Peel to play at his 50th birthday party," recalls Michael, "and after all he'd done for us in the early days it wouldn't really have been on to turn him down. We weren't exactly the happiest bunch of campers you've ever seen but we got together to rehearse anyway. The mood with Feargal was strained and he didn't actually even get to sing at rehearsals because he had the flu or something. Then he pissed Damian off by complaining about his guitar sound, which went down well, as you can imagine. In the end we never got to play the party because John and Damian's father died the night before the thing, so that was it."
Not long after that, a serious offer was placed in front of the band to reform for a series of festivals, with Feargal yet again proving the stumbling block.
"Yeah, it was a good offer," confirms John O'Neill. "It would have meant doing about six weekends, and myself and Damian were prepared to take time out from That Petrol Emotion to do it but Feargal just wouldn't wear it. Apparently he felt that as he was then an A&R man it would affect his credibility within the industry. That was the last time I'd any contact with him."
With the singer extremely unlikely to become involved with any project involving his former bandmates, fate intervened in the rather unexpected form of The Sawdoctors. At the request of Davy Carton (who was once a member of Tuam's answer to The Undertones, Blaze X), Billy and Michael were invited to join the Docs for an encore of 'Teenage Kicks' at The Point two years ago, with the invitation then being extended to the O'Neills for a show at the Galway Arts Festival last year.
"We did 'Teenage Kicks' and 'Get Over You' with Davy Carton singing," says Michael, "and then later that night did a seven-song set in the Warwick, which we had to play twice. It was one of those nights that sets you thinking 'Well, I wouldn't mind doing this again', so we recruited Paul for a couple of benefits we played in The Nerve Centre in Derry and here we are still."
Whatever about bands reforming without all the original members in place, the fact that The Undertones were about to re-enter the fray without the person many people felt was their trump card was bound to raise a few eyebrows. Quite apart from that, Paul McLoone must have felt enormous pressure in having to follow such a distinctive singer.
"The real problem was whether or not to try and imitate Feargal's voice," he says. "The danger was that if I went down that road it'd just be like some Stars In Their Eyes effort which, frankly, was not on at all. Luckily, the fact that both of us are from Derry means that the accent is the same and my range is vaguely similar to his. It would have been a joke to do a direct copy and so far the audiences we've played to haven't objected in an overly violent fashion. In fact, they've been marvellous."
Indeed, the first opportunity I had to witness the reformed Undertones was at, er, Witnness during the summer when, in an ideal mid-afternoon slot, they managed to cram practically their entire back-catalogue into less than an hour.
"It was 23 songs in total," laughs Michael. "Which may sound a lot, but when you consider that songs like 'Mars Bars' and 'True Confessions' are barely two minutes long then it doesn't seem quite so ridiculous. I have to say I think Witnness was the best one of the shows we've done so far. We were in a perfect slot, just after Jack L had done his thing and the sun had just come out, so if we'd screwed it up then we'd only ourselves to blame."
"Once you're not headlining a festival then I think you're in a no-lose situation," adds Paul. "People aren't there necessarily to see you but they're up for having a good day out - especially if it's running over a couple of days - and if you can do even a halfway decent show then you're laughing. The age thing doesn't really come into it in a situation like that - you've had Johnny Cash and Tony Bennett playing Glastonbury so we've a while to go yet before we're at that stage."
Ah yes, the future. With Paul involved with Today FM, Michael working for Radio Foyle, John running Derry's Nerve Centre, Billy working for Seagate and Damian about to release a new album, what exactly are The Undertones' collective plans?
"There have been offers to keep the whole thing going," John explains, "but I don't really think it's a runner. When we got back together we said it was only going to be on an occasional basis and most of us still feel that way. We don't want to be hauling ourselves around on what is essentially a Punk nostalgia circuit because we'd soon lose the goodwill that's been built up so far. We've got a good name and it'd be a shame to diminish it."

DON T LOOK BACK
The Undertones Damian O Neill hopes you like his new direction

The joyous punk pop of The Undertones and the spiky groove rock of That Petrol Emotion couldn t be further from the current musical direction of Damian O Neill, who s recently completed an album for release on Alan McGee s Poptones label in the new year.
Oh God, it s a world away from what I m doing with The Undertones," he says over the phone from his London home. "For starters it s all instrumental, very atmospheric and there are practically no guitars on it, which is about as far as you can get from My Perfect Cousin . Alan McGee got to hear an EP I did for a French label, which Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine produced, and made an approach which was gratefully accepted, needless to say!
So why did the co-author of Mars Bars , Beautiful Friend , The Love Parade and the sole writer of the shot across the bows to his bandmates of Fairly In The Money Now change direction so radically?
Well, I d always been interested in arranging songs for brass and strings, explains Damian, which I first dabbled with on The Undertones The Positive Touch and it just grew from there. I started using samplers a while back because it got to the point where things weren t going great in my personal life, my marriage was breaking up, and I just couldn t pick up the guitar, so I got more and more into this new area. It s kinda hard to describe what it sounds like but someone like DJ Shadow would definitely have been an influence and people have said that it s quite filmic, so with any luck that ll be something I can bluff my way into!
So where do The Undertones figure in Damian s plans, if at all?
Doing the gigs during the summer was great fun, no question about that, but I honestly don t think it s going to lead to us getting back together on a permanent basis. Doing a burst of shows a couple of times a year is fine but even that s an organisational nightmare. I m living in London with a new baby to bring up, Paul is in Dublin, the others are living in Derry and everyone has jobs, so even getting together to rehearse songs we already know is like co-ordinating a military operation. To go beyond that would be insane. Nah, it s not going to happen, to paraphrase a popular song from a few years back!