The Immediate

The Immediate
The Immediate in 2007
Background information
Origin	Malahide, Dublin, Ireland
Genres	Indie,krautrock,neo-new wave,rock
Years active	2003–2007
Labels	Fantastic Plastic Records
Associated acts	Villagers
Website	Official website
Past members	David Hedderman Conor O'Brien Peter Toomey Barra Heavey

The Immediate were an avant-garde Irish rock quartet, based in Malahide. They made a considerable impact on the Irish music scene despite releasing only one album during the span of their association together. The album was In Towers and Clouds (2006). It received primarily positive critical feedback and was nominated for the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year 2006. Alongside their sole album, several extended plays and singles were also released by the band.

They split suddenly in May 2007, citing "existential differences". The final line-up of the band consisted of David Hedderman (vocals, guitar, bass), Conor O'Brien (vocals, guitar, drums), Peter Toomey (vocals, drums, bass) and Barra Heavey (keys, guitar, bass, drums, backing vocals). The band was known for swapping instruments regularly throughout sets.

The band members were raised in middle-class Dublin during the Celtic Tiger boom years. O'Brien called it "a spiritually bereft place". They lived in Malahide. Hedderman, O'Brien and Toomey came together at St Conleth's College in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Heavey joined the band at a later stage and they first performed as The Subterraneans. Hedderman studied painting at the National College of Art and Design, while O'Brien studied for an arts degree in English and Philosophy at University College Dublin. The band took their name from their favourite adjective—"immediate".

Among the venues for early gigs were hotel function rooms and a church. The band then spent their college years taking a more direct approach to making themselves known to a wider audience, playing parties and college balls, and occasionally organizing their own shows in Eamonn Dorans, a small pub venue in the centre of Dublin. A CD was thrown onstage at a Manic Street Preachers gig to a bemused Nicky Wire and another was even slipped into Beck's bag with a purchase at a Dublin bookstore. The band spent these formative years honing their craft, with David and Conor focusing on developing their songwriting skills, and Peter on his live performance, which was to become a particularly electrifying aspect of the group's live shows. At this time, guitarist Eoin O'Reilly completed the line-up of the group, and a self-released EP called "Don't Get Lost" (2003) was made available from a select amount of independent Dublin record stores.