"What was a New Romantic band from London playing at when they released a song about the Northern Irish Troubles in 1986? Spandau Ballet hit number six in the singles charts with Through the Barricades, but for the band members, the song was close to home. Three years earlier, the band’s Belfast-born roadie, Thomas “Kidso” Reilly, was shod dead by a British soldier while visiting family at home in Belfast. Kidso roadied for many of the biggest bands of the 1980s, including Depeche Mode and Bananarama, and one iconic photo shows all three members of Bananarama leading his funeral cortege down Belfast’s Whiterock Road. In this episode of Aistear an Amhráin, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, the writer of Through the Barricades, recalls the day the band heard of Kidso’s death, and how Kemp was inspired to write the song after visiting west Belfast in the wake of the tragedy. Kidso’s brother Jim Reilly, former drummer with Stiff Little Fingers, recalls how working for the pop industry and touring the world with top bands was Kidso’s ticket out of the Northern Ireland conflict."
Aistear an Amhráin
Tuesday, RTÉ One, 7pm
Should be available over here on RTE Player. Will link it up if so. I'll have it on IPTV.