6 thoughts

  1. Great find, thank you – I remember watching this at the time. Friday night, autumn 1988. Just home from pushing trolleys. BTW – it’s The Late Late Show. 🙂

    1. Thanks for the correction, I’ll change it. They were booked to return in December for a live vocal performance of “Nightingales”, but I think were gazumped by U2. Take it you have no recollection of that?

      1. Hi, I wasn’t aware that Prefab Sprout were due back again so soon. The U2 appearance on that The Late Late Show episode (16 December 1988) was pretty memorable. They were interviewed for close to an hour and sang a version of Merry Xmas (War Is Over). They were wrecked after the lengthy Joshua Tree tour and the Rattle and Hum promotional duties. They had intended taking a total break but were persuaded to appear on the basis that they were back home anyway to rest so a quick detour to RTE’s studios wasn’t too much hardship. As far as I remember it was a fairly last minute decision to bring them on.

  2. Paddy’s vocal sounds here very close to the released studio master, but I do hear some very slight variations. I admit I’m skeptical, because the vocal sounds so polished and “reverby”.

    1. It’s definitely a live vocal. I think Gay Byrne insisted on that. They also did a similarly semi-live Prisoner of the Past which I’d love to find.

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