select skin: 
Add page to: 
Add page to: Add page to: Driving to Galway in the van with Band X. This leg of the tour is three gigs in three days (Limerick, Galway and Cork, respectively). Band Y is the support band, and they are friends of longstanding with both Band X and myself. Two vanloads of boys travelling the west of Ireland, playing venues of 500 people a night. We get to Galway and unload the van. The venue (Roisin Dubh, pronounced 'Ro-sheen Duv' means 'Black Rose' in Irish) is one I've been to with Band X many times. It has its own apartments around the corner. T (tour manager) has sorted beds for all of us, and we're all ready to go. Band Y come on, and B (guitarist for the support) has already started partying. (He didn't really finish from the previous night in Limerick). He's onstage, drinking whiskey and playing guitar and just having a ball. Band Y finish, Band X come on, and there's B, out of his mind, standing in the crowd, spraying everyone with beer, an evil grin plastered onto his face. He picks up a tambourine, leans over the front of the stage, and starts screaming for a particular tune of Band X's, all the while guzzling beer and still managing to keep time with the tambourine. I was in stitches laughing. There was only one thing to do, and that was join him. The place was heaving, we were all having a ball, t'was a special night.
Post show, the real party started. We invited half the audience back to the apartment for a party. The promoter heard the noise and came over from the venue. He nearly had a heart attack. There's 20 year old girls running around with little compact digital cameras, people are kissin each other, there's boys earnestly (and drunkenly) trying to talk to the guitarists about guitar pedals, there's me with three bottles of beer in my hand...just good old fashioned mayhem. I'm not sure what happened, but most of Band Y, the tour manager and I ended up going back to these girls' apartments to continue the party. We're all drinking, this girl made me up a bed, and finally we all passed out.
I woke up. T is standing over me: 'It's time to get up'
. I just looked at him. I was dead tired. I did not want to go to Cork. I wanted to go to sleep. 'Come on, get up, it's mid-day, we have to go to Cork'
. I just looked at him and uttered two words: 'You cunt'
. Then I got up and we went back to the apartment. Bodies everywhere; on the floors, sofas, beds, barely space to walk I picked up my camera. I then threw open I and C's door (Band X's drummer and bass player) and they were asleep in their little single beds, so I got a couple of pictures of them to help document the aftermath. Then it was into the shower, into the venue, load the van, and onto Cork.
Needless to say, S (singer from Band X) didn't bother going to soundcheck. I gave him my sleeping bag; he took a sleeping pill and had some kip in the dressing room of the venue. At 8pm or so, a fella strolls in and informs us he's playing with the boys tonight. Turns out S had rung this guy who is a lap steel player, so S runs through one song with him ONCE and that's rehearsal. The gig went well. Some friends of all of ours came down from Dublin, so it was party central again. All night. A three-hour long jam session of Fleetwood Mac covers, highlighted by a bloke pulling down his trousers and underpants so his mate could play a bongo solo on his arse. Then it was into the main bar for a lock-in, where we managed to alienate all the locals by continuing our Fleetwood Mac marathon at the top of our lungs while drinking shots of Jagermeister. Then it was back to our mad friend G's house where everyone passed out except myself, S and G. We sat around drinking a bottle of Absinthe and talking absolute rubbish till midday. Here's a sample:
G: I'm good at everything.
S: I believe ya.
G: I wouldn't be GREAT at everything, but I'd be accomplished at everything.
S: I don't doubt ya.
Me: You're both megalomaniacs!
Then they went asleep. I wasn't able, so instead of hanging around waiting for everyone, I ordered a cab, went to the train station, and got the next train back to Dublin. I rang them when I got home (around 6pm or so) and they hadn't even left Cork yet. Band Y hadn't even packed their van yet! Then it was my turn to pass out.