Hothouse Flowers

One of Ireland's great rock hopefuls of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hothouse Flowers' earnest pop melodies and glossy indie anthems brought comparisons with The Waterboys, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison. Formed by schoolfriends Liam Ó Maonlaí (vocals) and Fiachna Ó Braonáin (guitar) as a street performance group named the Incomparable Benzini Brothers, their early gigs in Dublin led to Rolling Stone magazine declaring them the "best unsigned band in the world". After being spotted by Bono, they released the single Love Don't Work This Way through U2's label Mother Records. Their first album People (1988) reached Number 2 in the UK and at the time became the biggest selling debut by an Irish artist, while lead track Don't Go brought international recognition and the lads went on to play at the Glastonbury and Reading festivals. They scored further Top 10 albums with Home (1990) and Songs From The Rain (1993) and had hits with Give It Up and I Can See Clearly Now; however, they were left behind when the Brit pop craze hit in the mid-1990s and, despite the success of their comeback album Into Your Heart (2004) in Ireland, they struggled to recapture earlier glories.