'When I hit the stage I change. I metamorphosise. I become a different person. I give off a vibe,’ said the late showband singer
Former Irish Times journalist Shane Hegarty interviewed the late showband star in 2005. Frank Miller took the photosperform back in the mid-2000s, it was too easy to approach him as a man out of his time. Back then, it was hard not to be fascinated by and, in all honesty, a bit sneery of the look, the tan, the hair . You might wonder about him continuing the old act well into his ... actually, he didn’t want his age published back then. The showband singer died on December 6th, aged 88.
It was the tail end of a time when irony had taken a firm grip on pop and a handful of 1960s crooners had identified an opportunity in arch takes on modern songs. Of Ireland’s showband stalwarts, Joe Dolan had done what we might now call “a Rick Astley” and found a new and delighted audience by throwing his supposedly anachronistic act at a covers album of tracks by Blur, Pulp, Radiohead and the like.
But it was on stage that you saw why he was still in the business. These were the stages of the Noggin Inn and the Spawell, but he treated them like Carnegie Hall, belting out the classics as the jacket came off, the shirt buttons were undone and the audience grabbed at him whenever he wasn’t high-kicking.Frank Miller’s backstage photographs of Rock are striking. Under the orange lights of the redundant bar that serves as his dressingroom, the singer poses topless.
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