Band line up
Sound engineer- Keith (Ski) Forbes
Brian Coyle-
lead guitar, vocals, harmonica
Drew Phillips-
keyboards
George Dunnachie
-
bass
Davie Edgar
-
drums 81-82
Harry Denmark-
drums 82-84
Campbell Forbes along with Brian Coyle (both ex Underhand Jones) set up a new band called “The Dolphins” in 1981, they went on to become one of the best young bands in Glasgow renowned for their tight performances with excellent musicianship and presentation. Gigs usually started with dimming of the lights along with the venues music then the much louder P.A. would kick in with “The Baseball furies chase” (from The Warriors) as an intro, the band moved into position as the intro quietened then The Dolphins would start, launching into their outstanding repertoire of material like “Running" or “Just Another Mother”, they showed great versatility with an impressive range of musical styles from ballads, pop, reggae, instrumentals and every once in a while a ragtime number called “Inspiration” was thrown in for a bit of diversity and they usually finished the gig with a rocker such as “Shock Horror” or “Light Up The Sky”, add to this a good humoured interaction with the crowd and you had a very accomplished act.
Harry Denmark took over on drums at the end of 1982 and “inspired a new phase in writing” as described by Campbell from “SoundMaker” magazine in may 1983. Mr Denmark added an extra spark of excitement to the band, he had the ability to range from minimal to busy when required always allowing the melody of the song to shine through and when necessary he could fill in with fast, well timed drum runs, never over stated but enough to let the audience know that the guy behind the kit was at work too.
They played a one off gig in Kelvingrove Bandstand in the summer of 1983 in front of 4000 Dolphins fans and played well into the night, at one point during the gig “Cammy” looked out over the crowd now only being lit by the stage lights and commented “This is like a scene from my favourite film”….referring to the movie The Warriors (hence the band’s intro music). They finished with the aptly named song “Light up the Sky” under an impressive fireworks display which was the only source of light for the fans to make their way back home through the otherwise pitch black Kelvingrove park.
The Kelvingrove concert gave the band their first appearance on T.V. with news reporter Louise Batchelor, Cammy got across the point that bands like H2O getting into the charts was good for other bands in and around Glasgow at that time as it highlighted the band scene in Scotland which had often gone unnoticed by major record companies based down south. The Dolphins made another T.V. appearance on B.B.C. Scotland’s“Untied Shoelaces Show” later on that year, playing three songs on the show, “Tonight”, “Chelsea Mornings” and “Slow Down” all three numbers recently penned by Campbell and deliberately more commercial than most of the band’s earlier material although the lyrics in “Slow Down” did have to be changed slightly for the Saturday morning T.V. show.
Musically the band paid a lot of attention to detail with thoughtfully constructed songs such as “The Bottom Line” and “Older and Wiser” with their mid song musical interludes, they had a brilliant Instrumental called “Song for the Japanese Dolphin” with its subtle piano beginning, explosive mid section bringing in powerful guitar and drums then moving back to quiet piano and keyboards punctuated with haunting guitar licks at the end. Arguably the band’s most popular ballad “Stay” was always excellent live and it had the added dimension of a 12 piece string orchestra on the studio version, surprisingly the band never made a studio recording of the song “Best Years of My Youth” a well written emotional song always well performed with intelligent lyrics, melodic piano and a brilliant guitar solo from Brian Coyle working his way from the bottom of the fret board to the top with Campbell pushing his voice to the limit at the end, no other band was doing this type of material in Glasgow and certainly not to the level of creativity and professionalism as The Dolphins. For more music and info on The Dolphins check out their Myspace site.
Sound Maker
Magazine 1983
Interview by Steve Blacknell
THE BUS
Auchinlea park rock concert (Easterhouse) 1984
Photos from the night time Kelvingrove Concert, summer 1983
