by Sam

Nobody believes me when I say that U2 supported us at the Nashville.Well here's the proof, and what great memories I have of that night.
I'm guitarist and songwriter for Back To Zero and we've been hauled in at the last minute after the main band cancels. We're riding on a crest of a wave, the Mod thing being in full swing in '79. March of the Mods tour, single out on Fiction, life is as about exciting as it gets for for a 17 year old.
So these guys from Dublin turn up and we're a bit flummoxed because they don't look like the bands that we normally play with. Especialy the guitarist who has this strange triangular haircut. There's an argument between their drummer and ours over whos kit to use. It's getting nasty. Handbags are being swung.
So I disapear to the bar and come back after the soundcheck to hear this band out of courtesy.
There's this singer who's kind of doing some wierd mime stuff while singing - like Bowie's butterfly at Hammersmith Odeon. The guitarist is playing a Gibson Firebird. He's not whacking out big power chords but doing this melodic delay stuff that sounds awesome. The bass player and drummer are locked in to some pretty solid stuff and I'm blown away. The audience are, not surprisingly, a little disinterested because they want a Mod band and nothing else will do. But I notice people started to pay attention when the opening bars of 'I Will Follow' fill the space between us. The rest of 'Boy' gets aired and whilst there's no encore, I come away feeling a bit different about the way I want Back to Zero to go.
I split Back to zero in 1980 and form a band that I call Berlin ( later the name changes to Kindergarten). I find myself writing songs that hark back to the sounds I heard at that gig. Strange coincidence - Berlins' drummer is Larry Mullens' cousin it turns out.
They'll have forgotten about us by now but I often wonder what happened to that little band from Dublin.
Sam Burnett
Back To Zero

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