PhilLynottand ‘Clapton, man!’

THERE was only four of them in it, four tall thin women, who pranced around in shiny leotards, on a small set that only barely afforded them enough room to avoid collision. And if they did collide by accident, most of us wouldn’t have noticed. They were a constant on Ireland’s top pop show, the RTE version of Top Of The Pops.

For some of us, they were a constant annoyance, their only saviour was the song that they danced to – probably the English number one – by an artist that Irish TV couldn’t afford to have in person.

I really wondered what the hell they were doing, what was it? Just leaping around without any particular skill or grace, it seemed. It was dance I was told, but what kind of dance? It wasn’t ballet, that’s for sure. Later on, when I moved to New York, I was to find out that it was ‘modern dance’ or ‘jazz’.

I found out, because that was what my girlfriend Maryellen did. Maryellen sucked me into that world bit by bit, soon I was even writing music for this strange art form. And then one day it dawned on me that this was what those women on the Irish pop show were doing.

In retrospect I can’t say if they were any better than I thought they were, but at least I now know what it was, and I bet they were glad of that few bob every week, because it’s not the most lucrative of professions.

Every band in Ireland was trying to get on this show, so it was a big deal if you did. I was the organist in a young band called The Arrows. We had big management, and they were forever pulling strings on our behalf, and they did get us on that show several times. But the first one was the most memorable.

We were a pop band and took that moniker very seriously. We had a single out at the time called ‘ One Step Two Step’ an asinine pop march. The producer of the show decided that we should dress up in American Football gear for the song. We had brought our ‘ casual’ stage gear, colourful polyester trousers and sleeveless three quarter length vests, Beatle boots and frilly silk shirts, all in different colours. We weren’t going to make a holy show of ourselves dressed in American football gear, when we had our hip ‘casual’ uniforms.

This caused a huge uproar and the producer almost threw us off the show. Finally our management intervened and we were allowed to wear our own gear.

One of the great thrills of being at RTE was going to the canteen. The show would give us vouchers that covered the cost of dinner, so we had all the chips and chops and chicken that we could handle before the show. While we were chowing down, I noticed one of the modern dancers eating at another table, at that point all of their faces were recognisable.

She sat quietly in the corner reading a book – here was this bone thin woman, having an apple for dinner! I was astounded that she wasn’t taking advantage of all the chips and stuff. ‘How thin did she want to be?’

Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy stood next to me as we stood on the side waiting to go on. Then they played Eric Clapton’s ‘After Midnight’ and the four dancers hopped around to it. It wasn’t one of my favourite songs but I had to think again, after Phil leaned over to me and cooed, ‘Clapton, man’.

“One of the great thrills of being at RTE was going to the canteen... We had all the chips and chops and chicken that we could handle before the show