A BROKEN BAND NO MORE By Deirdre Cartmill THE Adventures were the most highly acclaimed Northern Irish band of the eighties and achieved a string of successes. Their international hit single Broken Land was Radio One's most played single of 1988; they were the first signings to manager Simon Fuller, who brought The Spice Girls to fame; they toured Europe with Fleetwood Mac and they were the first to capture the sounds of Brian Kennedy, who sang backing vocals on their albums. Now The Adventures are back with a reunion gig at The Empire, Belfast on December 27. The three core members of the original band, Terry Sharpe, Pat Gribben and Eileen Gribben, will be joined by two new members Iggy Ward and John Burns. Reunion is actually a slight misnomer as vocalist Terry Sharpe explains that although the band have been quiet since 1992, they never actually split up. "It was a case of things kind of ground to a halt and we were involved in different things. Pat had moved back to Belfast and I was still living in London so we were physically less in contact with each other. In the last few months different elements seem to have come together and have conspired to get us back together again. "We had the offer from the West Belfast Festival for us to headline on their closing night at their open air festival and then The Empire came in with an offer for us to do a show; then we got some recording time to try and re-record some old stuff and work on some new material." Their undisputable touch for writing classic pop melodies is a major factor in their appeal. With four albums under their belts, The Adventures have been using the latest studio technology to re-record some of their classic tracks such as Broken Land, Raining All Over The World and Send My Heart. They plan to release these together with a smattering of new material as a Best Of.. album next year. Although they've stayed closely connected with music over the last six years, Pat as a songwriter with major recording artists and Terry singing with covers bands, they are excited about concentrating on their own music again. "Doing TV shows around the world and touring all over the world is wonderful, and I think we miss it," says Terry. "It's one thing playing in a bar and doing other people's songs, but playing to live audiences who've come to see you, that's a great job to have." Their pop sensibilities and live sound fits well into the contemporary music scene, in fact a lot better than it did first time round. "Back in the days of Bronski Beat and The Communards and The Eurythmics, we went right against the grain. We had a seven piece band on stage and the unfortunate thing for us then was that there were a lot of two piece synthesiser duos and trios around so we were never really fashionable in that sense. It seems that it's come full circle and there are a lot of live bands around now." So Terry's final words of wisdom with his usual tongue in cheek humour are: "Whatever everybody else is doing, do the opposite. You might be on the right track in a few years time." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 2 Enjoy the best Adventures at West Belfast Festival By Colin Harper The mid '80s were hardly a vintage era for classic pop music, but one act whose star has not diminished over the years is The Adventures. From Belfast, based around the exhilarating creative chemistry between the sensational vocals and stage presence of Terry Sharpe and the more reserved but classy songwriting and guitar wizardry of Pat Gribben, the Adventures enjoyed a run of minor hit singles spanning 1984-92. Broken Land, reaching No 20 in 1988 remains their biggest hit and certainly one of Pat's most enduring songs - encapsulating the kind of melodic values that subsequently led the likes of Crowded House on to bigger and better things. The Adventures have been effectively dormant for years now, but a one-off reunion show on Sunday August 10 at the West Belfast Festival may prove something of a watershed. "Myself, my wife Eileen and Terry Sharpe are the three who started the band and we're all still there" says Gribben. "Over the years we've had people come and go but it just so happened that all three of us are now back in Belfast at the same time and the idea of doing this gig was put to us. I was a bit sceptical about it but Terry said he wanted to do it so one night I said 'yeah, okay...' and before I could think twice about it it was on posters and programmes and being announced on radio shows. So I can hardly stop it now!" Gribben admits it's been about six years since The Adventures last played live, and about nine years since they last played in Belfast, although there was an appearance more recently on Anderson on the Box: "I got a phone call asking if I was interested in doing that show and I'd just recorded a demo of a new song To Whom It Concerns, and thought, 'Yeah, we'll have a go at this.' Terry was in town and we got in Nicky Scott from Van Morrison's band and a few others. But in terms of gigs it's been ages. The people from the West Belfast Festival assured me there was still a lot of interest. I didn't know there was, but the bottom line is that the key members are all in town, we're all musicians and we've got the songs - we've no excuses not to do it. We've had a couple of acoustic rehearsals which were really enjoyable and we've had one full band rehearsal which was...well, it was okay!" Anyone who's seen Gribben in action with one of his other projects, popular local covers acts The Dead Handsomes, will be aware that this is mere modesty. Gribben, like the other members of that band - who can regularly be seen storming Belfast bars like McEnaney's, the King's Head and the Hercules - is a top class player and performer and there's a lot that today's plethora of young original music bands around the north could learn from The Handsomes. And speaking of which, does Gribben, who is also currently involved in writing and touring with hot new English singer Ryan Molloy, feel any affinity with the current crop of successful Northern Irish artists? "Ash are excellent" he says. "I really liked Oh Yeah but no, they're much younger ... it's a different thing. But strangely enough a lot of the bands that have had success from Oasis on are harking back to the same stuff we did, like the Beatles. The guy that's managing me, Simon Fuller - who also manages Brian Kennedy and The Spice Girls - said that The Adventures would be perfect for now. We just weren't perfect for the mid '80s, we were going against the grain. So with that in mind we'll do this gig and if we enjoy it and it's good then we'll look around for another record deal. I've got the material - I never stopped writing songs. It wouldn't take much for us to be persuaded." Though finding the time might be a problem: "Yeah, I'm up to my neck in music - I'm probably busier right now than I've ever been! When The Adventures last record deal was terminated I was looking around for something to do and Simon Fuller and a guy from BMG showed me a video of their new discovery, Ryan Molloy - a young guy from Newcastle-upon-Tyne - and asked if I'd be interested in writing some songs with him. This would have been about 1995 and I was back in Belfast. Ryan arrived over on the 12th of July that year, we went into a local studio - Green Dolphin - and demoed two songs, he went back to London and the record company loved them." A long process of more writing, recording and mixing began and Ryan's album - co-written entirely with Gribben - should hopefully be out soon: "I've already done two support tours with him and he can really do it" says Pat, "brilliant singer, great performer. The biggest ego you could imagine!" That's as may be, but he'd better watch out because after the 10th of August Terry Sharpe, the original and the best, is back on the scene. And it's not to be missed.