If they could turn back time

THE FRANK AND WALTERS The Thatch, Tullamore, Co Offaly Tonight 9pm €18 057-9355910; Workman’s Club, Dublin Tomorrow 9pm €18 0818-719300

Twenty years is too long to stick around and wait for the big time to either arrive at your feet or – if you’re really lucky – come around again. We recall Cork’s The Frank and Walters catching a wave or two in 1992, with their debut album (Trains, Boats and Planes), and appearances on Top of the Pops and the cover of NME.

But such small if no doubt delightful victories fade away when faced with diminishing commercial returns. And so FW did what most bands of their means do: retreated, lived their lives, continued to dream, and continued to write, record and perform.

Call it perseverance, call it dedication or obsessiveness, but such a pragmatic, heads- down approach appears to have paid off. The band’s new album, Greenwich Mean Time, is a wonderful return to the pop highs of their earlier work, and bodes well for the future.

This Dublin gig gets even better with the news that the original line-up of The Would Be’s, another much liked- 1990s band that could have/ should have, are reforming especially to play support.

CAN'T SEE THAT? CATCH THIS

The Gandhis Sun, Dublin