I feel the same about a lot of songs of that era and genre. Like I will be listening to the Buzzcocks, The Damned, Wire or Gang of Four and think to myself "It doesn't get any better than this".
There are pieces of music by Schütz, Bach, Rameau, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Schoenberg and Stravinsky that still bring tears to my eyes, even after listening to such for some 40 years. But none of them can scratch the itch that bands such as The Undertones do, still. Modern 'pop' music just makes my teeth itch.
This song is simply relentless. The pounding drums, scratch-that-itch guitars and thundering bass, and Feargal's frenetic delivery make this one of the most perfect pieces of pop music ever played. The fact that they were so tight that the video synchronizes perfectly with the single is just icing on the cake. No wonder The Undertones were John Peel's favourite band ever until The White Stripes came along. The confidence to deliver it all in Feargal's native Derry accent, rather than imitating a faux US accent like so many other bands just pushes it over the top. It's matchless.
Is it the single synchronising with the video or is it actually the live peformance? The single fades out whereas this doesn't and the start is a bit more energised than the start of the single. Also you can hear the crowd cheering at the end. It is very good quality sound though for a 40 year old live performance. Whatever it is, you are totally correct about how amazing this song is. My favourite song of all time, it's perfect pop.
This song with Sharkey in the orange plaid shirt and chain smoking was at Irving Plaza in NY City in 1980 or 81. There were few breaks between songs. These guys were dressed very plain- not pretentious at all.Great show - like a machine gun hitting you. I had ringing in ears which went away the following day.Best show I have ever seen and I saw Hendrix and many others. This was my all time favorite and a friend says the same thing and all he knows is Beatles and Stones stuff.
The ULTIMATE punk pop band. Even better than my hometown heroes - Buzzcocks,. Saw the tones many times in the late 70s and early 80s and those gigs still resonate with me to this day. Really hoping for a biog on the band one day.
you are so right, one of the best band ever, songs are amazing!!!!!! How old were they???? 18 and 19???? incredible!!! love them from 40 years now and when i listened them i remember that fabulous périod of my 20 in England, no money but them always on the radio!!!!
one of the best live bands of their time-was lucky enough to be with them for part of the humming tour and they were a set o genuine nice guys as well,great music still fresh today
I've watched this video about a thousand times but it just dawned on me (and admittedly hazy dawn though it is) that Baby Feargal here had the voice to replace Bon Scott. That would have saved us from agony that is A Good Heart.
+MF Schade It took too long for punk to catch on. It was our Hollywood/NY controlled system that did not give punk the airwaves.It is worse now and has been terrible for 20 years in the USA. They make "stars" out of certain people. Most popular music in the USA is junk to me. I do believe there was a lot of prejudice shown against these young men from Ireland who actually were happy, wrote simple words, smiled, and came out of the Catholic school system in Derry, Ireland.Suffice it to say that those who watch The Undertones on You Tube are very different from the masses. Great music still does not make it in the USA.It was Seymour Stein who got the Undertones recognition. Stein was another one of us who loved this kind of music.
and I'm not even irish/northern irish. I was at an Afghan wedding in Chicago and the bride and groom played 'teenage kicks' as their wedding intro song. The elders were in shock but we were all on the dance floor. It was a great do !
i’m 19 years old from toronto and they’ve become my favourite band over the few past years, have never met anyone who saw them in toronto until i see this haha, o keefe centre if i stand correct
Man I wanna see these guys live with the new singer. While he's not as distinct as Feargal, he sounds pretty fucking good on the recordings I've heard so far. Plus I've seen a couple of interviews and you can tell they are actual friends, while the relationship with Feargal seems rather strained... pity that Feargal left to do what he considered more grown up stuff... I mean, I like eighties pop and I actually kind of like Feargal's solo stuff, but in the videos and performances he seems so, so, desperate to be accepted as some kind of mega-pop star, he looks and sounds so much better when he dressed scrappy and had a freaking attitude with the Undertones. He didn't know how good he had it... Undertones will go down in history and instead of being remembered as the pop star he aspired to be, Feargal will be remembered as the guy who ditched one of the most timeless bands to ever exist. But what the hell do I know, I just got into Undertones like two weeks ago... I've been sick in bed doing extensive youtube/wikipedia research and listening to these songs over and over again. Makes me want to start a band again, these tunes are so damn inspiring. Especially this one. And to be fair, the track Feargal did with Vince Clarke as the Assembly is pretty damn good.
You're not wrong, albeit imo the Undertones got stale. Like many bands, great for 3/4 albums, then they lost their mojo. Still 5/6 of the best live gigs, I ever saw, were with Feargal in the line up. Simply electric.
Saw them 7/8 times, from tiny venues (which were simply majestic), to stadium festivals. Wish I was back in that 'Tones mosh pit, right now. Hey Mickey, what's incoherently mean ? Pure genius.
Always love this song, but I was quite taken back by just how well they performed it. I often find live performances a real disappointment, but this one was right out there.
Irving Plaza was a stand up place. You could buy beer and walk around-you could get right near the stage or stand back .It didn't seem that big.I have not been there for a long time. It called itself for awhile the Fillmore east at Irving Plaza but some years back went back to Irving Plaza. I have great memories of the show and the place.
haaaaaaaaaaa yeah!!Saw them at Benicassim, I left Brandom Flowers on main stage to sing and jump to this legend of band. They said "Enjoy the Strokes and didn´t praise any British band" it was kinda funny watching em on satge jumping on their fifties
I think this was shown on tv on a show called “so it goes” or was it “OGWT” as a clip, but whatever. We all saw if school when I was 14 and everybody was going on about the next day. Totally amazing.
I like the Undertones and 80's alternative band That Petrol Emotion. Misheard lyric 'Dressed like Thatcher you must be living in different world' goodness help us.
There are times when i think this may be the best song ever written.
I feel the same about a lot of songs of that era and genre. Like I will be listening to the Buzzcocks, The Damned, Wire or Gang of Four and think to myself "It doesn't get any better than this".
There are pieces of music by Schütz, Bach, Rameau, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Schoenberg and Stravinsky that still bring tears to my eyes, even after listening to such for some 40 years. But none of them can scratch the itch that bands such as The Undertones do, still.
Modern 'pop' music just makes my teeth itch.
They havent got any bad ones to be fair
It's the best Undertones song. No debate permitted.
Flawless. Everything about this song is perfect. John Peel said Teenage Kicks was the perfect song but I think this is better.
Agree.
It is better - several of the band think the same
The best Undertones song ever, never get bored of hearing it.
This song is simply relentless. The pounding drums, scratch-that-itch guitars and thundering bass, and Feargal's frenetic delivery make this one of the most perfect pieces of pop music ever played. The fact that they were so tight that the video synchronizes perfectly with the single is just icing on the cake. No wonder The Undertones were John Peel's favourite band ever until The White Stripes came along. The confidence to deliver it all in Feargal's native Derry accent, rather than imitating a faux US accent like so many other bands just pushes it over the top. It's matchless.
I don't think anybody would put the White Stripes at the same level as The Undertones. They were basically a couple who copied other bands sound.
@@dercossthe idea that they were "John Peel's favourite band" ffs
agree with you..but this is not popmusic...this is punkrock at it's best
@@Spectrescup Teenage Kicks was Peel's favourite single ever - he had "Teenage Dreams so hard to beat" inscribed on his headstone
Is it the single synchronising with the video or is it actually the live peformance? The single fades out whereas this doesn't and the start is a bit more energised than the start of the single. Also you can hear the crowd cheering at the end. It is very good quality sound though for a 40 year old live performance. Whatever it is, you are totally correct about how amazing this song is. My favourite song of all time, it's perfect pop.
Ladies and gentlemen This is the greatest band of all time The undertones,
yep x
holy hand grenade.... powerful stuff!
2nd gig I saw and everything after has struggled to match the experience of seeing the undertones live!
You mean the Ramones
@@AnonymousAnonymous-ji1xd Saw them too and I was high as a kite, going great until morons started fighting :-(
I love how they always seem to wear the clothes they got for Christmas. Great song/performance!
😂
Lol!
Billy's thunderous drumming in the chorus, love it!
The best live performance I've ever seen! Back in my teenage days! Fantastic!!!
Man I feel you, I did not know they THAT good. Amazing !
Possibly the best 2 minutes of my day
...of any day
I want to like this twice.
Fantastic tune from an amazing band. Great sound. Good smoking as well.
Great song, fantastic band and love the idea of Feargal smoking whilst performing, just brilliant.
He's like - gotta finish this song before my cigarette goes out... :o)
wow. these guys need more recognition in the US. so much bigger than the song "teenage kicks."
Look who it is
Funny seeing you here
I couldn't agree more!
Shut up, dork
I love the way the bass player nudges the singer at the end of the guitar break (1:25) -- like, "get back and sing!"
Great song :-)
Well spotted. The shortest guitar break in history...
The song was done in before he finished his tab, one of the worlds best new wave pop songs still sounds great today.
always my favourite song. under rated genius
This very tone and others much alike are the reasons why I ever even picked up a guitar and amp and learned how to play and eq
Rock n' roll doesn't get much better than this. Absolutely timeless!
This song with Sharkey in the orange plaid shirt and chain smoking was at Irving Plaza in NY City in 1980 or 81. There were few breaks between songs. These guys were dressed very plain- not pretentious at all.Great show - like a machine gun hitting you. I had ringing in ears which went away the following day.Best show I have ever seen and I saw Hendrix and many others. This was my all time favorite and a friend says the same thing and all he knows is Beatles and Stones stuff.
Brilliant comment, cheers. A fan from 80
It's all in the energy !!!
saw them at Trax on West 72 St on their first US tour. Couldn't agree more. They KILLED IT!
First time I saw them they did 10 encores. They didnt want to go home. F*****g brilliant.
"chain smoking?" He had a cigarette in his hand, wtf? Could have been anywhere hun, NY not the only place in the world where people have fun xx
I saw them on this tour
(Middlesbrough Rock Garden 22nd May 1979)
Forget "Teenage Kicks",this song is their finest moment!
great picture sleeve too!
One of my favorite bands!
remember seeing this on TV about 79. like a bomb going off in the living room
They really are giving it all👌🏻💪🏻👍🏻
Absolutely awesome been an undertones fan since I first heard them around 78
Brilliant.
I saw them at Guildford civic hall in 1979 at their peak, so good
Saw em in Sheffield back in 1980, still a stand out gig, brilliant live band.
They were great. You can't beat the energy of young guys.
Outstanding performance
One of my favorite band !
Saw them at Bradford St Georges Hall. This is my favourite song. They wore 3 star jumpers flared jeans and Doc Martin boots. Ace.
I love that smirk at the beginning. Feargal knows how much ass they're kicking.
bloody great
I used to think Feargal was singing "Dressed like Thatcher, must be living in a different world..." But it still works.
Same… though that would have been a politically clever point tbh
But that's what the lyric is?
steve johnson Dressed like a statue...
"Dressed like that you must be living in a different world"
Yup, same for me.
See them last year at stone valley south 2021 they were on 🔥 that night
The ULTIMATE punk pop band. Even better than my hometown heroes - Buzzcocks,. Saw the tones many times in the late 70s and early 80s and those gigs still resonate with me to this day. Really hoping for a biog on the band one day.
I agree wholeheartedly. Brilliant songs and arrangements. Great guitar-ing.
Very underappreciated indeed.
Yeah, the twin attack of John and Damien was a thing of wonder.
Love that - "Twin attack'. Great description.
you are so right, one of the best band ever, songs are amazing!!!!!! How old were they???? 18 and 19???? incredible!!! love them from 40 years now and when i listened them i remember that fabulous périod of my 20 in England, no money but them always on the radio!!!!
You know, the Buzzcocks were the best Britpunk band of 1976-79. But I sneakily somehow sort of agree with you. So underrated!
I can't get over the Undertones... they are sooo good, I'm listening to them ever since they started! Never gets old
One of my favourite Undertone songs.
What a performance...
one of the best live bands of their time-was lucky enough to be with them for part of the humming tour and they were a set o genuine nice guys as well,great music still fresh today
I've watched this video about a thousand times but it just dawned on me (and admittedly hazy dawn though it is) that Baby Feargal here had the voice to replace Bon Scott. That would have saved us from agony that is A Good Heart.
Oh boy. Fantastic.
Ridiculously cool. Today's 'youth music' is 'punk' in name only. Cheers for this, you've made an old punk very happy...
These guys should have been HUGE in the US. This one rocks!!
+MF Schade It took too long for punk to catch on. It was our Hollywood/NY controlled system that did not give punk the airwaves.It is worse now and has been terrible for 20 years in the USA. They make "stars" out of certain people. Most popular music in the USA is junk to me. I do believe there was a lot of prejudice shown against these young men from Ireland who actually were happy, wrote simple words, smiled, and came out of the Catholic school system in Derry, Ireland.Suffice it to say that those who watch The Undertones on You Tube are very different from the masses. Great music still does not make it in the USA.It was Seymour Stein who got the Undertones recognition. Stein was another one of us who loved this kind of music.
The US was late on the ball with punk in the 1970s. We did our share in the 1990s, thank god.
This is fucking amazing.
Pure class at its best
Happy memories.... the boys live in full flight were awesome live.... great song and great band!
and I'm not even irish/northern irish. I was at an Afghan wedding in Chicago and the bride and groom played 'teenage kicks' as their wedding intro song. The elders were in shock but we were all on the dance floor. It was a great do !
like the way that Michael gives Fergal a nudge at the 1.26 mark to remind him it's time to sing again.... excellent song and excellent performance
Just fantastic...I love this song
Simply awesome !!!
next to 999 my favorite band saw them three times in Toronto in early days
i’m 19 years old from toronto and they’ve become my favourite band over the few past years, have never met anyone who saw them in toronto until i see this haha, o keefe centre if i stand correct
Man I wanna see these guys live with the new singer. While he's not as distinct as Feargal, he sounds pretty fucking good on the recordings I've heard so far. Plus I've seen a couple of interviews and you can tell they are actual friends, while the relationship with Feargal seems rather strained... pity that Feargal left to do what he considered more grown up stuff... I mean, I like eighties pop and I actually kind of like Feargal's solo stuff, but in the videos and performances he seems so, so, desperate to be accepted as some kind of mega-pop star, he looks and sounds so much better when he dressed scrappy and had a freaking attitude with the Undertones. He didn't know how good he had it... Undertones will go down in history and instead of being remembered as the pop star he aspired to be, Feargal will be remembered as the guy who ditched one of the most timeless bands to ever exist.
But what the hell do I know, I just got into Undertones like two weeks ago... I've been sick in bed doing extensive youtube/wikipedia research and listening to these songs over and over again. Makes me want to start a band again, these tunes are so damn inspiring. Especially this one.
And to be fair, the track Feargal did with Vince Clarke as the Assembly is pretty damn good.
The new guy is better than Feargal, and I saw them with both multiple times.
+Sonicsnout I know exactly how you're feeling
You're not wrong, albeit imo the Undertones got stale. Like many bands, great for 3/4 albums, then they lost their mojo. Still 5/6 of the best live gigs, I ever saw, were with Feargal in the line up. Simply electric.
It's capturing lightening in the bottle stuff - great when it happened but you secretly know it can't last.
Saw them 7/8 times, from tiny venues (which were simply majestic), to stadium festivals. Wish I was back in that 'Tones mosh pit, right now. Hey Mickey, what's incoherently mean ? Pure genius.
thanks for sharing - have always loved Feargal Sharkey's so special voice !!!
Wonderful ✌️🎸
Always love this song, but I was quite taken back by just how well they performed it. I often find live performances a real disappointment, but this one was right out there.
Perfect mix of 50s and punk
Spot on
Damals wie heute hammergeil... One of my alltime favorites. ...fantastic gig @ so36 last year
One of the best from one of the best.
This song is like two minutes long but Feargal had to smoke his cigarette right before he starts singing. Tobacco fiend! Love this song.
Fucking amazing! Greatest pop/rock song ever penned!
as always one of the best bands of the early days
The Undertones like Travis decades later a great group in their heyday. New wave at it's best.
a mitad de tiempo que los Ramones y con el doble de guitarras e INCREIBLEMENTE BUENOS
one of the best bands ever
big shout to ludeboy77 for putting this on...if your about to turn 50 like me... the undertones were the band to follow back in the late 70's
Irving Plaza was a stand up place. You could buy beer and walk around-you could get right near the stage or stand back .It didn't seem that big.I have not been there for a long time. It called itself for awhile the Fillmore east at Irving Plaza but some years back went back to Irving Plaza. I have great memories of the show and the place.
This is what rock n roll is
Bloody brilliant!
was there too. UNREAL. just pure class
the undertones forever
saw em at plymouth poly about 1980...will live with me forever
fing brilliant the best pop song ever!!!!
Sounds great 30 years on!
Still great in 2024
Fu*king amazing. That is all.
haaaaaaaaaaa yeah!!Saw them at Benicassim, I left Brandom Flowers on main stage to sing and jump to this legend of band. They said "Enjoy the Strokes and didn´t praise any British band" it was kinda funny watching em on satge jumping on their fifties
The GREATEST band from Ireland in history.
Derry
good vibrations
and very old remembers, when i hear that from my good friend Caine,
here, dude, in Pilsen, behind the Iron Wall ! :)
This must be 78/79 cos I remember being blown away a year before I saw them live in 80
Best song ever 👌
Saw them in Manchester in 1981, 30 years later going to see them in Birmingham, just a pity Sharkey wont be there
bliss reminds me of of youth growing up no money no future fucking great tunes
I think this was shown on tv on a show called “so it goes” or was it “OGWT” as a clip, but whatever. We all saw if school when I was 14 and everybody was going on about the next day. Totally amazing.
PERFECT.
great drumming as well
Seen them back in 1980 in Rotterdam. Thnx for posting.
Came for "Jump Boys" (another gem) and stayed for this. The ultimate pop group.
love those drums! gives a big lump in the chest everytime!
I like the Undertones and 80's alternative band That Petrol Emotion. Misheard lyric 'Dressed like Thatcher you must be living in different world' goodness help us.
the best version
Best song of the Undertones,
I love the voice of Feargal Sharkey.
love it
We all had a pullover like Mickey's when we were kids in the late 70's!
Seen The Undertones in Derry last night. Still magic!
Feargsl Harkey que lokaso eran buenos tiempos Con un estilo punk y Rock and Roll.
Cracking track and better than Teenage Kicks imo.
My Perfect Band !
Where is this? This is pure rock, pure punk. RIP Pete Shelley.
Feargal, such a star. 1 in a million, fronting the funniest non-punk punk band this side of the Gormwood creek