The rock of Ages Ago

Why? Is it the shock of encountering a living legend? The loaded weapon I carry at all times? The large stain on my crotch? Or is it, perhaps, because BP Fallon is always two paces behind me?

No, it’s none of these things. The reason is simple: young people nowadays just can’t handle real, honest-to-god, heads-down, no nonsense, southern fried rock ‘n’ roll. YEAH! DIG IT! And, lemme tell ya, nobody walks that walk or talks that talk quite like Samuel J. Snort Esq.

With one Slane down and one to go, I can’t help but laugh at all the fuss. I mean - check this out - one national newspaper actually advised patrons to pack bottled water and sunscreen and suggested handy places to park the car.

Bottled water!?! Sunscreen!?! Parking!?! Jesus marauding Christ, where the fuck did it all go so horribly wrong?

Well do I remember my first ever rock festival - and how different it was, how much more risky and dangerous and wild and life-affirming. In short: how much more rock ‘n’ roll. YEAH! RIGHT ON!!

Admittedly the turn-out was small - just me, my then old lady Starburst and a guy with a kazoo, sitting under a tree in a corner of Stephen’s Green sharing a bottle of Black Tower by the neck - but, hell, it were a festival to us.

Of course, that was back in the days when the Irish music scene consisted, in its entirety, of me, Pat Egan’s Sound Cellar, one black leather waistcoat and a band called Rodeo. I know what you’re saying and, yeah, you’re right: we never had it so good.

Personally, I feel that things started to change when a dude called Ubi Dywer put on a festival in the The Hollow in the Phoenix Park. Now, I know that some of you waterbrains still think that Sam Snort is a fictional creation, but let me assure you that Ubi was the real deal, a grizzled veteran of the Windsor free festivals, a pro-dope agitator and a man with a very odd name. (But a useful one nonetheless: when it briefly looked like the festival in the Hollow mightn’t go ahead, this very organ ran some quotes from the great man under the splendid headline ‘Ubi Dubious’).

The show eventually did go on but, unfortunately, I can’t tell you too much about it, having overdosed on Black Tower en route to the gig and collapsed in the vicinity of the zoo. Coming to suddenly, I woke to what I first thought was the wild, heavy sound of visiting American boogie giants Foghat - YEAH! - but which on further inspection turned out to be the love calls of mating hippos. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL! WHEW! Great days, great days.

Indeed, though I remember nothing about it at all, I feel safe in saying that the gig in the Hollow was the last great, authentic rock ‘n’ roll event in Ireland. Thereafter, things started to go downhill.

Black Tower was replaced by Blue Nun, Aeonghus McNally joined Mushroom, and, before anyone could shout stop, music people started to use the word “infrastructure”. BUMMER!!

And that’s all you near nowadays: “infrastructure”, “laminates”, “merchandise”, “Castle”. Whatever happened to “Marshall stacks”, “drum solo”, “poontang”, and “the fuzz”?

Luckily, some of us were there when the rock ‘n’ roll wave was at its highest and we jumped on board and surfed that baby clear across the country. SMOKIN’!!

So you can have your bottled water, your sun block and your luminous headband. Me? Next Saturday, I’ll be sitting out on the porch at Snort Towers laughing inwardly and remembering how good it used to be. YEAH!

However, if anyone does happen to have a spare VIP pass for the gig, please give me a call.