Gina, Dale Haze and The Champions burst onto the music scene in the mid-’70s and took the country by storm. The Cork-based combination were, without doubt, the biggest pop band of the decade to follow, packing dance halls and marquees with their stylish and well-rehearsed stage programme.

The band is coming together again for a nostalgic reunion and will perform a major open-air concert gig in Kilmacthomas, as part of the Comeraghs Wild Festival in Co Waterford on 16 July.

The show will hold special memories for Gina, as she performed her first ever gig with The Champions back in 1973, at the Rainbow Ballroom in Kilmacthomas. Little did they realise that this was the start of something major and the dawn of an era.

Pat Walsh from The Champions remembers the occasion: “It was in Kilmac we first introduced Gina as a member of the band. It soon became clear that things were falling into place for us. In 1974, she had her first chart hit with Dreams Are Good Friends, and the band really took off countrywide after Gina and Dale had a big hit with Minnie Minnie in 1975.

“We played a few places around Waterford in those early years, including Portlaw, Cill, the Atlantic Hotel in Tramore and the Olympia in Waterford, as well as Piltown Carnival in nearby south Kilkenny. We did a concert in The Forum in Waterford on our 2010 reunion tour. We don’t get the opportunity to play together as much these days and to have Dale join us on stage will certainly make the occasion extra special for us.”

Gina performed a guest spot at a concert in The Park Hotel in Dungarvan at the end of May and received an especially warm welcome from the audience: “It was a lovely night and the people were so supportive and appreciative. The lads (Pat and Mossy Walsh, Eddie Fitzgerald and Tony Brook) and I are so much looking forward to this special show in Kilmacthomas, and joining Dale Haze again.”

The show in Kilmacthomas sees Dale Haze (his real name is Jerdi Mackey) on home ground for the reunion. He was the only Waterford member of the otherwise all-Cork band. Jerdi was born and raised in Kilmac and is looking forward to this ‘hometown show’.

“I joined the band on stage for a few songs in Waterford as part of Summerval last year and it was so special. I did a few gigs with them way back in 2009 and 2010, but I’m back working full-time in an insurance business in Dungarvan now. There’s a new generation out there that probably never heard of us, but there are lots of fans out there too from all over Waterford, Tipperary, Wexford, Kilkenny, Cork, Wicklow and further afield that we look forward to performing to in Kilmacthomas.

“My home house was in Mahon View, where the car park is now. So while Gina will be coming back to where it began for her career, I’ll really be coming home to where my life began. It should be a truly special night.”

There is an interesting story to the background to how the band was named in 1973. Members were sitting around in Tommy Hayden’s office in Dublin, when Tony Byrne (manager) came up with the title out of the blue. Cork had won the All-Ireland football final some days earlier and he suggested they should call themselves The Champions.

Jerdi Mackey was there with the Walsh lads from Ballycotton and Tony Byrne was flicking through the pages of a newspaper on the desk. Jerdi takes up the story: “The real Dale Haze was a golfer from South Africa who won some major competition that week and his name was in a headline. Tony said: ‘That’s your stage-name from now on’. I became Dale Haze just like that. Louis Walsh was there in the same office, up from Kiltimagh and just starting out,” and so was born Gina, Dale Haze and The Champions.

From The National Ballroom in Parnell Square, Dublin, to The Beaten Path near Claremorris in Mayo and The Gleneagle in Killarney, and all the big venues and carnivals around the country, The Champions packed them in night after night.

Some of their big hits include The Greatest Lover, Do You Wanna Do It, Give Me Back My Love, Drunken Sailor and It’s A Real Good Feeling.

Fans can look forward to hearing all the hits on stage when Gina, Dale Haze and The Champions round off the three-day Comeraghs Wild Festival that celebrates everything that is authentic and special about the Comeragh Mountains.

The concert takes place under the Viaduct in Kilmacthomas, which is now part of the Waterford Greenway. Tickets are just €10 and, because of the nostalgia associated with the concert, organisers say demand is already brisk.

While The Champions take to the stage at 10pm for the 90-minute concert, the crowd will be warmed up from 8pm with local bands, Rocky Racoons and The Renegades. CL