The new video from Telefís, a collaboration between acclaimed producer Garret “Jacknife” Lee and the late Cathal Coughlan, includes early footage of the Virgin Prunes, U2, Nun Attax and Microdisney as well as vintage RTÉ footage of showbands.
Jacknife: “When Cathal and I started conversations about what the themes for our second album a Dó might be, we kept coming back to the peculiarly Irish phenomenon of the ‘showband’. […] The post-punk artists featured in the video (as well as the touring showbands) could only have been products of Ireland and we wanted to celebrate the oddness of it all. So, we invented a showband and called them The Carthaginians.The song explores what it’s like to be in a band, the relationship with the audience, the internal dialogues, the branding, the town hopping, the dashed hopes, and the ridiculous fantasies.”