Wall of Mouths

My take on the dublin gig was that andy thought the dublin governent were useless (which indeed they are, the shower of pricks), but I didnt pick up any negative Dublin vibe, infact I thought the band were very emotional and loved dublin. It was the same at the acedemy last time. I see them a lot more in London, and Dublin always seems more emotional… that said, Kentish Town was fanfuckingtastic…

I’ll second all that.

Andy has no problem with Dublin, he’s listed some of his favourite gigs as being Dublin ones. He lived near there (in Bray) for a long while in the 90’s. His observation on ‘Scopophobia’ is to do with the music scene, it is quite clique-y, as they say.

Regarding politics, I remember once them saying they consider themselves Northern Irish, simple as that. It’s where they’re from and identify as such. They don’t get into the whole “Irish or British” thing. And thank fuck for that!!

At the end of the Infernal Love booklet, band pointed the ceasefire negotations as an peace opurtunity for Northern Ireland. To write a note like that, it doesn’t really matter the tool - means peace, hope and hope for peace is the language. Behind all these dark lyrics, i think he’s a pretty optimistic human being and probably his political views parallel with his presence.

Why? If everyone comes to the conclusion he’s a good well-meaning guy I don’t see how this thread should be ignored just for the sake of not talking about politics… I just believe this is something interesting to ‘discuss’. Basically people mostly affirmed what I was already presuming in their posts, the bit on Scopophobia just got me wondering since I thought it atypical for him to say that :p

I agree the band are doing well not making official political statements too much. I could imagine they’re fed up with it, having grown up in Belfast and stuff. Thinking about it now (I just remembered), in the intro talk for ‘Exiles’ at live shows Andy didn’t differentiate between Irish / Northern Irish around the time of the Crooked Tour when he asked ‘are there people from Ireland here? This song is from you guys’, so I think it doesn’t matter much to him, which is (I think) probably the best way to see it.

I do however not think that he’s not interested in politics at all / doesn’t think about it at all. He’s too intellectually minded for that and I think he gets some of his inspiration for lyrics from it as well. At the last AB gig, he even talked about the current political situation in Belgium and made a slight comparison with Ireland, saying (though not directly) he didn’t really see the purpose of what we had going on here. A pretty impressive speech really, best I’ve heard from him. I don’t remember well enough to go and cite anything he said but his main conclusion at the end was all that matters is that people can have a good time together or something along those lines. It’s not a main thing in Therapy?’s shows but he’s expressed his view on solidarity a couple of times before in the gigs I’ve been to. Literally just expressing HIS view though, not asking people to think the same as him, which is a good way to approach stuff.

i think if you listen to early lyrics, it is quite obvious that he is disillusioned with the whole thing!

have never been to a dublin gig, but have seen them in belfast and various places in england - like has already been mentioned, and going from what andy has said at any gigs i have been at, they are northern irish and that is that.

Cuchulain wrote:

…99% of people couldn’t care less about the whole Irish / British thing…

this is certainly not true by the way - unfortunately might i add.

” I see no reason to remember 1690… This vision is pointless, to think that green’s the only colour on the atlas” - Potato Junkie. Nuff said.

i remember andy saying something similar to what fatboy quotes. there’s one thing we can be shure of: andy’s ideas are sincere, just and plausible for both sides in ulster/northern ireland. if my mind (reaching 50, mind you) doesn’t cheat me, i believe andy has the same ideas about (northern) ireland as slf’s jake burns. correct me if i’m wrong. anyway: therapy? will always be a ‘belfast’ band. i’d be proud of that, living over there.