Stepping back from the mainstream for a day, let's dip our toe into the "Oooh, so close" category.
After spending time in Ireland, Tracy came back to the US with a new found appreciation for some local musicians and armed with a catalogue of albums.
The 80's and early 90's produced a crop of successful Irish bands, U2 obviously, Thin Lizzy, Pogues, Cranberries, Waterboys .. and on and on.
There were also many who did great work, made great music and had a great following - but sadly it all remained in Ireland. 'Something Happens' got a mention back in June and today it's In Tua Nua.
Their name comes from the phonetic spelling of the Irish An Tuath Nua, "the new tribe."
Getting together in the early 80's as a 7-piece group, with Leslie Dowdall providing amazing lead vocals they played and sang a mix of modern folk, traditional Irish music and rock with uillean pipes, electric violin and guitar. They started off by being signed to U2's Mother label where they released their first single.
After moving to the Island label they released a couple more singles, 'Take My Hand' co-written by Sinéad O'Connor and a cover of Jefferson Airplane's 'Somebody To Love'. They recorded an album for Island but for some reason it was never released and after two years of waiting for it, Steve Wickham and Vinnie Kilduff left the group to join The Waterboys and Island dropped the rest of the band.
Adding replacements the band regrouped and signed with Virgin and in 1987 put out their debut album 'Vaudeville' followed the following year with this one, 'The Long Acre'.
They seemed to be finally riding the wave when they went to Los Angeles to record their third Virgin album 'When Night Came Down on Sunset', but after finishing the recording the band "somewhat acrimoniously" split up. Due to the breakup Virgin didn't release the album and it was only made available years later in 2006 on iTunes, mainly due to the efforts of the band's drummer Paul Byrne.
Stand-out tracks on this album would be 'Don't Fear Me Now', 'Wheel of Evil' and the title track 'The Long Acre' but to be honest, as a taste of what might have been and a look behind the curtain at some of the excess of talent in the Irish music scene, this whole album is well worth a listen, or two, or many more.
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