The Irish Times

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill: Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill: Cornmill Heritage Centre, Coalisland

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 4 August 1998

OVER THE PAST three years Hayes and Cahill have taken their remarkable, breathtakingly subtle artistry to some sizeable venues. Indeed, next year the plan is ...

Don McLean: Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 30 October 1998

"PEOPLE ASK ME what 'American Pie' means" says Don, midway through his enviably well-attended show. "It means I don't have to work any more if ...

The Divine Comedy: Ulster Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 9 December 1998

"WHAT A STRANGE looking person," said the young lady next to me as Neil Hannon arrived on the stage, to the fanfare of his conversely ...

Stereophonics: Ulster Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 10 May 1999

DEFINING THE phrase "meat and potatoes" rock in the grand tradition of, say, Rory Gallagher in the '70s, the most remarkable thing about this young ...

Capercaillie: West Belfast Festival

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 3 June 1999

THIS WAS THE Scots/Irish band's first time in Belfast in eight years, since when they've progressed from being a traditional music group to, well, something ...

Cliff Richard: King's Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 5 June 1999

ONE HAS TO respect Cliff's achievements: 40 years in a business increasingly designed for three year careers; number one hits in five different decades; recently ...

B.B. King: Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 24 September 1999

CAREFULLY-PACED is the byword for the B.B. King show these days: he's 73, a little frail and vocally not as powerful as he once was. ...

Bert Jansch: Bert and my Book

Comment by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 1 September 2000

CURRENTLY HOT on the heels of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash as an individualist icon of 20th Century music – name-dropped as an ...

Andy Williams: Andy Williams: Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 18 January 2001

THOSE SURPRISED by the absence of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' from the recent Beatles 1 compilation should remember or learn that the '60s were not only ...

John Martyn: NTL Studio, Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Live Review by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 28 February 2001

JOHN MARTYN MADE some very beautiful and distinctive acoustic-based records in the '70s, most notably Solid Air –reputedly a "chillout" fave for today's clubby types. ...

Séamus Ennis: "When Séamus Ennis played, it stood your hair on end"

Book Excerpt by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 27 August 2015

"SÉAMUS ENNIS was unique," wrote Ciarán Mac Mathúna, about the singular piper, folklorist and broadcaster on his death in 1982. "Of course, every person in ...

Stiff Little Fingers: Stuart Bailie on Trouble Songs: "I wanted to do something beautiful and pure"

Interview by Peter Murphy, The Irish Times, 12 May 2018

For his new book, about the music that soundtracked the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Belfast journalist Stuart Bailie followed the DIY aesthetic of the punk-era ...