Gig Diary from one of our first gigs as a 4 piece

I have a few gig and tour diaries that I wrote years ago when I had a bit more time and a few less kids. I'm going to put a few up on the blog as I dig them out.

Sligo, what a wild fucking place. The first gig we played there was out of control and ended at noon the next day in a field in the middle of nowhere. The Leechrum festival was even wilder. Starting and ending in that same field. Playing to naked punks at 5 in the evening with Gaz so stocious that the songs became a stream of consciousness rant more akin to Ulysses than Ray Davies. Three days of mayhem pure and simple. So heading back to Sligo promised to be a treat. We ran into Jasper at one of our gigs in Dublin and he asked us to come back up and play in the Trades Club again. Gigs outside of town are always more fun, you don't have to go home afterwards to your regular life. And another gig as a four piece which is a different vibe. There's a lot of us now. Three guitars sticking out of bags. It just feels different especially when we are traveling together. I really loved being in a three piece for some reason. A power trio. Minimalist. But the music comes first and it sounds better with the four of us.

Everybody nearly missed the train except me. I got in a shower over at Sarah's as my bathroom only consisted of a toilet in the middle of the sitting room. And a lift to the station. The train was smooth. Gaz was the only one that brought beer, so it was mellow. Yeat's Country is beautiful country, it has to be said. It just gets more extreme the farther west you go. It looks like it has been scraped and pushed and pulled in different directions. Odd looking lumps loom out of flat fields. Hills rise straight up into plateaus that stretch on for miles. Golden and rocky, they make for an amazing background to a quaint little village by the sea.

That contrasts somewhat with the town itself. Sligo looks nice enough. It has a nice area down by the river and they have obviously spruced it up with a lick of paint and a few nice restaurants. But it's a tough fucking town. It's like so many small towns in Ireland. There are countless really tough small towns in Ireland. We grabbed a bit of food and a few cans and headed down to the river. Shot the shit and passed the time, then headed to the pub for the Ireland World Cup Qualifier match. It would be useful to know if the punters were going to be in a good or a bad mood later. It was a shit match, but Ireland won.

The first band were deadly. Kids playing metal. They started with a Slayer/Metallica medley and played large portions of Motorhead's back catalogue. Their average age was literally 15, I asked them later. They were great though, good to see kids giving it loads. The next band was a 25 piece samba percussion group. Marching band style. They were great even if they were too serious to appreciate Gary's antics.

We played one of our better gigs ever. We were tight and had great energy. We didn't have any silence during the gig. Just the added feedback of the extra amp fills a bit of space. It gave me hope that the GGI wasn't just a fluke and that we were actually improving. And we just sound so much better with 2 guitars.

The crowd loved it. We are always so well received down the country. We do well in Dublin, but the country people just seem to enjoy the gigs so much more. I spent most of the rest of the gig out on the fire escape drinking tins with the kids.

Getting more beer to take back to the party turned into a lot of hassle and even more cash, but it was sorted and besides Tommy falling down the stairs and completely hobbling himself, it was into the Taxi and off to Dessie's. No problem. The taxi driver said he'd never drive by anyone carrying instruments and not pick them up. Up to Dessie's, which was now in the middle of nowhere, and of course Dessie had fallen asleep in his house. We couldn't wake him to let us in no matter what we did. We could see him through the back door, we could hear him snore, heard his phone ringing, but no movement. Jasper handed me a shovel and showed me how to pry the wood off one of the windows in the back of the house. No problem on that and I was in. I must say at this point, that I knew that Dessie had neighbours very close and I guessed that they probably lived in the other half of the house. So as I was walking through the pitch black back of the house, I was sure that I was going to run into an old woman in a terry cloth robe wielding a rolling pin. Once I found the sitting room, though, it became obvious that I was in Dessie's. Records everywhere and newspaper sopping up recently spilled beer. Round to the front door, turned the latch and we were all in.

We were keeping it very mellow. We had even talked Gaz into keeping the stereo down, which is usually virtually impossible. It didn’t take long for the stereo to edge up to a respectable level. Easy to hear, easy to talk. Then things got tricky. Dessie's girl Nessa is friends with a very camp gay guy from Hawaii. American guy from Hawaii, not that it matters. I heard him ask Jasper at the gig if he could come back to the house for a few drinks and Jasper definitely made it clear not to bring people back. No more than 2 anyways. So your man showed up at about 4 with 6 surfer dudes. Dessie went mad. He just started screaming at your man to get the Fuck out. Some of the lads came in cracked open a few tins, the rest stayed outside, I'd guess trying to see the lay of the land. Dessie was having none of it. He didn't want all of those people he didn't know in his house. It didn't matter that Nessa had invited them all and that she'd be home soon. Dessie's has that kind of aggro/sloppy drunk thing going. It doesn't help that his nose has definitely been spread across his face a few times in his life. Things took a turn for the worse when he grabbed the hatchet. It wasn't really a hatchet so much as a three-quarter sized axe. He was swinging it around as he kept screaming at your man to get the fuck out. The surfers had already legged it outside. Everybody was trying to calm Dessie down, but he couldn't hear or see anyone except the Hawaiian. He was too drunk to actually hit your man with the hatchet and he probably wouldn't. None-the-less, as soon as he dropped the axe, I grabbed it and hid it. It was all like watching a really mad movie. It didn't really seem like it was happening. I get that a lot. I read somewhere that moving to another country is like getting a free ticket. Nothing ever seems real. You can kind of look in in a way that you couldn't at home.

It was at this point that Conzo, on his second trip away with the band and undoubtedly a bit surprised by the evenings festivities, legged it off to bed. The Hawaiian had hung on to wait for Nessa, the rest had seen enough. Nessa came back and the music went all the way up. The party really picked up and rocked for a while. I did the math and figured that there couldn't be enough beds for everybody. I took my leave and after finding somone sleeping on the floor of an absolutely baltic room with wood half covering the absent windows, found a lovely warm room with glass in the windows, a bed and a sleeping bag. Score. Me sorted.

That was at 6. At 8-30, I woke up to the realisation that Gaz was sleeping on top of me. It was a single bed and he'd kind wedged himself between the wall and me. What an unbelievable snore. Snorting and sputtering. Every minute or so it sounded as if all of his breathing had stopped for a split second and then spent the next 5 trying to make up the time. After a while I had to move to the floor. I had managed to get into the sleeping bag so that was my own. I must have lay there for a few hours drifting in and out of sleep. The way that you think that you haven't gotten any more sleep, but time has passed so quickly that you must have. I got up and stumbled around the house. Tommy was of course sleeping in the most uncomfortable position possible. Basically doubled over in an armchair with a blanket wrapped around his neck. Cans littered every flat surface and newspaper stuck to my feet with every step I took. I took refuge in the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. I was almost immediately followed in by Gaz who turned The Exploited up to ten and grabbed a can of Guinness out of the fridge.

Dessie came out a while later and re-assumed his sloppy/aggro thing. He was pissed that the music was so loud, but got even more pissed off when I offered to turn it down. He gave out that Gaz was drinking his Guinness and grabbed the can off him. Gaz responded by opening a new can and drinking that. Gaz cajoled Dessie into chilling out. Gaz can calm people down by calling them names and telling them they're not punk rock. It only works for him, let me assure you. I busied myself making toast and tea for people as they woke up. I wanted to make sure that we didn't miss the train and I wanted a bit of food, so I arranged transport and we headed into town. The last image I have of that house is Dessie and Gaz locked in an professional wrestling style embrace, both with one hand on the last can of Guinness in the house, both trying to wrestle the last half of the can into their mouth.

The surfer lads had left Jasper a present on the doors of his car in the shape of two boot prints complete with large dents in the fenders. Jasper wasn't impressed and I’m sure he was glad to be getting rid of us so that he could relax a bit. He's a great promoter because he always looks after the bands. He looks after whatever he can and he works really hard.

So it was into the pub for a pint, next door for a couple of sambos and then onto the train. Tommy tried to make a run to the off-license for the way home, but had to pull up lame half way there. His leg was looking pretty broken, his limp complemented by a drunken hangover meant that he was lucky to make the train period. Gaz tried to make a run as well, but left it too late and could only get a bottle of wine. They both made the train with seconds to spare, but we were all on.

Gaz had no corkscrew so he pushed the cork in with a key. It opened the bottle, but every time he tried to take a gulp, the cork would re-adhere itself in the neck of the bottle. So he had to push it with his finger and drink the wine that flowed around his digit. It did the trick, but not without spraying wine all over his face. He looked absolutely demented. After about an hour, he fucked off to the jacks. Thankfully, he got lost and ended up passing out for the remainder of the journey in someone else's seat.
As we pulled into town, Gaz reappeared. Rolled a smoke and brazenly smoked it out in the open. He was taking a long drag off the fag, pressing himself against the dividing window and giving us the finger when he was caught by the conductor. After numerous threats of arrest, the conductor realised Gary was mental and his threats were falling on deaf ears.

Conzo got the DART out to pick up his son as soon as we got off of the train and I headed out of the station. It was taking Gaz and Tommy ages. Gaz was holding Tommy up with one hand and drinking a beer he had mysteriously just found. Tommy's leg was fucked and they were giggling like a couple of idiots. I'd had enough and grabbed Gary's bike and headed home to a bit of sanity and a bit of peace and quiet.