Fair Exchange Biography 1979
Fair Exchange were formed in Cahir, Co Tipperary in the spring of 1979 (we took our name from a Be-Bop Deluxe album track) when Charlie O Neill, Anthony Fitzpatrick, Joe Shine and myself got together to perform four songs at a local Scouts Concert on the 27th May of that year. The 4 songs were “The Who’s” – “The Kids Are Alright”, “Smokie’s”- “Living Next Door To Alice”, “The Bay City Rollers” “Maryanne” and “Elvis Presley’s” - “Hound Dog” In fact we only had 3 learnt and had to come up with “Hound Dog” when we were asked for an encore. So bitten by the bug (and convinced we were going to be the next big thing in music) we decided to put the band together properly.
Enjoying this “new found” being in a band experience so much we decided to begin rehearsing a full set of well known, popular, cover versions. We also began writing original material at this time, which we would include in our forthcoming live performances. On Sunday August 26th 1979 we, as Fair Exchange, performed our first full public gig, closing the Second Fair Of Cahir with an open air performance on the Square in Cahir to, what was at the time, a huge audience.
First photo l to r – Charlie O Neill, Anthony Fitzpatrick, Johnny Casey, Joe Shine