Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland boasts an eclectic bunch of musical successes that include popsters the Divine Comedy and alternative metal band Therapy? Both Snow Patrol and the legendary singer-songwriter Van Morrison hail from Belfast as do punks Stiff Little Fingers and balladeer Brian Kennedy who was born and brought up on the Falls Road. Meanwhile, alternative rockers Ash hail from Downpatrick and the Undertones come from Derry.
Belfast
Places of interest
Cyprus Avenue, Belfast
This tree-lined street, not far from where Van Morrison grew up, is the inspiration for the track on Astral Weeks and also referred to in several other of his songs - including Ro Ro Rosey.
Venues
Ulster Hall, Belfast (www.ulsterhall.co.uk)
One of the UK’s top rock venues, where Led Zeppelin first performed Stairway to Heaven live in 1971, at a time when no English band dared tour the province.
The Limelight
As you walk into the Limelight it is obvious that you are entering one the UK’s finest small venues. The walls are covered with pictures of "who's who" of modern music.
The rest of Northern Ireland
Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim
Featured on the cover of the 1973 Led Zeppelin album, Houses of the Holy. The naked children scaling the basalt columns were inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi novel Childhood's End, in which children run off the end of the earth.