Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens passes

I WAS sad to learn today about the death of Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens, one of the bands that I have loved since being a teenager in Belfast in the 1980s.



The first album of theirs I bought was Liberty Bell and the Black Diamond Express and I taped it and listened to it to death on my walkman. Somewhere along the line I lent the albums (as I bought more by this stage) to someone and never got them back.



Then a couple of years ago they digitally remastered the catalogue of music and relaunched them and I picked up some CDs then including the great Liberty Bell and 16 Lovers Lane.

They played support to REM in Dublin in the late 1980s but I was away in the States for the summer and missed it. I think it was the next year when I was back in the States and they played a farewell gig in Hoboken, New Jersey, where I was staying and missed the concert by a week.

Then in the 1990s I caught Robert Forster in the then Mean Fiddler and he was great but I never managed to see Grant McLennan or the band itself.

Now I'll have to content myself with the back albums. Robert Forster has announced the band is no more which is apt I think.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.

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