The Miami Showband massacre

by Stephen Travers

"On 31 July 1975, members of The Miami Showband were returning to Dublin after a gig in Banbridge when they were stopped at a military checkpoint. For Stephen Travers, the band's new bass player, it was an unusual experience but he wasn't too worried." "However, as the musicians were lined up beside their van, Stephen noticed that the atmosphere had suddenly changed - something more sinister was happening." "In a flash, their lives were dramatically altered when a bomb that was being placed in their van exploded prematurely. The events of that night would never leave Stephen Travers - being hurled into the air by the explosion, listening to the cries of his friends as they were mercilessly gunned down and the steps of the gunmen getting closer as they approached to finish him of..." "What is it like to survive such an atrocity? To live when those around you die? In The Miami Showband Massacre, Stephen Travers remembers the highs of being in the most successful showband of the 1970s and