Ian Parker - Keyboard Player with TRB recalls his two visits here with the Tom Robinson Band
My first arrival in Ireland with TRB in late 1978 was pretty dramatic. The night before we played Aberystwyth Uni then after the concert the fork lift on the truck broke and about 20 of us had to manually lift it up and secure it to then drive through a hurricane to get to Holyhead for the night ferry. There was a gale, fog and torrential rain and our manager Tony Howard drove us through the storm at breakneck speed so we wouldn’t miss the ferry. He wouldn’t stop and I remember pissing in a bottle in the back of the van.
When we got to the port the ship was stuck out at sea and couldn’t dock so we shivered at Holyhead until 3.30 in the morning until the boat could finally make it in. It was a rough crossing but when we arrived at Dublin docks in the morning we crashed into the pier and knocked huge chunks of timber into the sea. I was finally in Ireland for the first time ever.
It was a brilliant gig at Trinity College but I remember our dressing room was the women’s toilets - I think they were taking the piss! About five songs from the end of our set the PA blew up and we ended the concert with only our monitors blasting out - I loved it! Then we headed up north to Belfast and had a day off. My mate and fellow punk Liam took me on all day pub crawl in Belfast to as many places as we could drink in without getting shot - I loved the city straight away even though it was still pretty much a war zone.
On the next trip we stayed again at the heavily fortified Europa Hotel and when I went into the famous Crown over the road for a pint of Guinness I met Jake and Ali from SLF and we had great crack. We then headed up to Portrush and Liam brought all his mates and I somehow blagged a massive bunkhouse at the hotel for us all - it was party time.
Tom Robinson Band - Ulster Hall Belfast - Record Mirror review 31st March 1979 by Peter McAleer
Six months ago the support band on the ‘Out Of The Darkness’ tour was Stiff Little Fingers and in Belfast having to follow a local band of their calibrate meant TRB came off second best. No chance of a repeat on Saturday night although the Straits, a four girl line up, provided a diverse selection of early seventies and new wave sounds ‘Get It On’ and the anti disco ‘Sacha Shoes Mafia’ being the high points. Dolphin Taylor has since left, Charlie Morgan filling in on tour and possibly joining TRB full time.
They opened with ‘All Right All Night’, followed by ‘Winter of 79’. All the material was familiar with the exception of ‘Getting Tighter’ by Hot Peaches, which Robinson could have written. (The recorded version don’t do these songs justice at all). Robinson’s comments between numbers sometimes sounded like the sleeve notes performed live and I overheard someone likening his outspoken delivery to Brian Clough minus tracksuit plus guitar. All was forgiven when, complete with baton, beret and sunglasses, he launched into ‘Sorry Mr Harris’.Interrogation methods used by security forces are a sore point in Ulster and Robinson’s recognition of the problem was widely appreciated by most of the packed hall. As was his reggaefied version of 'I Shall Be Released’. ‘Glad To Be Gay’ and ‘Bully For You’ followed but ironically it was the cop orientated ‘2-4-6-8’ which got the best reception of the night. ‘Martin’, the first encore, gave Danny Kustow some exposure, but TRB finished a great gig with their tour-de-force ‘Power In The Darkness’. It alone was worth missing Match Of The Day for.
