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2 Part RTE TV Series BALLROOM BLITZ
In BALLROOM BLITZ U2’s Adam Clayton races the rise and fall of Irish showbands as they inspired a church dominated 1950s Ireland to embrace a new modern world of music, fashion and pop culture of the 1960s. Ireland has its first modern music stars as over 600 showbands packed out over 1000 ballrooms nationwide. As original folk and rock acts performed in licensed hotels halls and cabaret venues, the ballroom industry was on the slide and by the late 1970s, after the Miami massacre and the rise of licensed discos, showbands endured a painful demise as ballrooms faded into rubble, apartment blocks and carpet showrooms.
Ep1 – November 27th RTE One 9.30 pm
Adam Clayton explores how a dark oppressed Ireland was ripe for a social and sexual revolution and, as Elvis Presley and the Beatles fill our radios, young people in parishes all over Ireland established their own showbands and took to the road in their thousands. At their peak there were over 600 showbands with the local church providing the hall before the managers, promoters and band owners invested in newly built ballrooms in every parish in Ireland.
A Sideline Production for RTE
Ep2 – December 4th RTE One 9.30 pm
In the prosperous 1960s, Irish audiences craved more comfort than a hastily built ballroom, often with no heat, that never served alcohol. The rise of the student movement and the renaissance in trad music in the 1970s, sparked a folk and ballad boom that also coincided with the rise of new rock talent like Rory Gallagher, Horslips and Van Morrison. Whilst country music survived, The Miami showband massacre of July 31st 1975 was often seen as the day the showband industry died and, as discos thrived in licensed premises, Adam Clayton discovers that the days of the ‘pop’ showband were at an end.
A Sideline Production for RTE
Above – ex-CHIPS singer with Adam at the Dog Hub in North Dublin which she now runs.