Dublin showband with unexpected rocker on the B-side
Label: Pye
Year of Release: 1967
For all their strengths, Irish showbands could seldom be accused of being ground-breaking. Hard-working, entertaining, and musically accomplished, yes - trend-setting, no. What's often noticeable about the majority of the 45s they issued is most were entrenched in styles the rest of Europe had left behind a few years earlier, from slick, watery-eyed, round vowelled balladry to old-school rock and roll.
Dublin's The Carousels (aka The Carousel Showband) try their hand at both on this 45, with "Holiday Romance" on the A-side being the kind of prim, Cliff Richard-esque whimsy you'd expect from the title, whereas the flip "The Run-Run" is an unexpectedly pounding piece of swinging rock with a steady backbeat which wouldn't have shamed The Beatles' earliest live sets. While I've never had the pleasure of watching The Carousels live, you can imagine what they were capable of delivering from the hints afforded here; a nice slowie for the dancefloor and a raucous rock and roll number for when the drinks were truly flowing.
For all the strengths "The Run-Run" affords, though, it sounds like a relic from the early Merseybeat boom and would have been a total fish out of water during the summer of 1967; a nice memento for those who enjoyed their live shows but not something that would have made much sense to the paisley kids.
