The Undertones announce two shows in Belfast & Derry/Londonderry
Last updated 28th Apr 2023
Local legends The Undertones have announced two headline shows in Belfast & Derry this year!
📍 The Telegraph Building, Belfast on Saturday November 25th
📍 The Millennium Forum, Derry on Friday November 24th 2023
Tickets are now available to purchase from ticketmaster.ie & millenniumforum.co.uk
The shows will celebrate 45 years of their most influential and famous song, Teenage Kicks and will see the Derry five piece joined by a host of special guests, Buzzcocks, Neville Staple from The Specials, The Outcasts and DJ Terri Hooley.
The Undertones emerged from Derry in 1976, the result of five friends (John O’Neill, Damian O’Neill, Feargal Sharkey, Billy Doherty and Michael Bradley) learning how to play basic rock and roll.
Even by the standards of that decade Derry was not the rock and roll capital of anywhere. With no live bands worth watching, they learned by listening to mail order records, reading one of the few copies of NME that made it to Derry but most of all from listening to John Peel’s wonderful show on BBC Radio One.
Practicing in their bedrooms eventually led to the band recording John O’Neill’s ‘Teenage Kicks’ in 1978 on Terri Hooley's Good Vibrations label in Belfast. The legendary DJ John Peel received a copy and liked it so much he played it twice in a row on his radio show.
In 1999 The Undertones reconvened, without Feargal Sharkey, to once again perform their two-minute, three and a half chord songs to a new generation of fans in Derry.
Fellow Derryman Paul McLoone replaced Sharkey on vocals and his vocal prowess and electric onstage presence soon convinced any doubters that he was more than capable of doing the job.
After much consideration the band released an LP of new songs called `Get What You Need', which was critically acclaimed by Q magazine, Uncut, Rolling Stone and Hot Press.
Songs like ‘Thrill Me’, ‘I Need Your Love The Way It Used To Be’ and ‘Everything But You' showed that the art of writing short, sharp songs had not been lost over the previous two decades.
2023 marks the 44th Anniversary of the release of their most influential and seminal self-titled first album.
How to get tickets:
Tickets are now available to purchase from ticketmaster.ie & millenniumforum.co.uk
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