Searching for the Soul of Modern England

By the time the band met at 5 am to get the boat over from Rosslare to Fishgaurd we were already exhausted! We travelled to London in heavy traffic and played a gig in Islington Assembly Hall.  They gave away free tickets for the  gig to bump up the numbers and fill the old fashioned ornate hall. A funny thing happened at that gig... After our main set, the audience were calling for more, but we travelled up, down, and all around the labyrinth backstage trying get back for an encore but got lost. Then when we finally got there it sounded a bit quiet so we changed our minds. Then we were told back at the dressing room that the audience were still there wanting more. So we went back again along various halls and staircases and by then the audience had truly gone home!  How very Spinal Tap! 

Tempers ran high a couple of times in the band, most memorably at ‘load out’ time of gig 1 and 2, where fatigue and irrationality seemed to be already taking its toll. We are now in the habit of playing consistently great shows though! And that’s the main thing for the people coming to see us, whom we need to continue to give respect. Respect the friendly helpful local crew too. I think it will always be strange visiting UK for Irish bands. Respect and resentment are close cousins.

London still makes me feel eternally lost. Like an acid trip on loop. Emerge from Tube, lost. Back underground, emerge from tube, lost. Back down, up, lost. But when you get your compass fixed you can find the most soulful artful market communities like Portobello Road, cosmopolitan Whitechapel and Brick Lane. 

The Birmingham venue, Norton's of Digbeth, was really a glorified Irish bar who charged only an extremely low admission for our gig there. As one customer said, “why was your gig so underpriced? I just paid £52 for a Natalie Merchant show and this is every bit as good musically”. 

Birmingham has been transformed in recent years and the dusty empty cobble street area Digbeth is an example of a broken beautiful place that can flourish with the right urban planning. It used to be an area thriving with Irish and Asian retailers and warehouses many moons ago. This is where Birds Eye Custard originated after all. Go investors, go!

Next up was the gig in not very cosmopolitan Glastonbury . A lot of shops selling ‘sticks and stones to tourists’ (as our stage manager ‘Smurf’ put it) … or crystals, dream catchers and twisty bark as we see it. There were Liberal sprinklings of tanned tattooed hippies with peroxide dreads on the street, young handsome bearded beggars, and a community seemingly hanging on to a colourful misty past. There is a sense that the ‘old money’ that they inherited seemed to have run out of sometime post-Thatcher. And everybody seems to have a little dog, a stick, and a story. 

“I don’t do motor cars”, one seasoned gentleman said when we asked about parking.. “I used to be a biker in my day see.  I’ve never liked them. They just cause traffic, over population, obesity, and pollution.” Fair enough, but what about your bike? 

Funny the smell of grass in London and Birmingham can be intoxicatingly glorious, but wasn't as evident here on this particular day. The odd bag of magic mushrooms might go your way if they like the colour of your culottes though. And the soundtrack to walking around the main st of Glastonbury village is still the boom and pang of djembe drum circles. 

“How r ya?”, I said to one vinyl/jewellery/magic carpet shop owner. “Good, ever since the drummers went home”, was the reply. It reminded me of the time I played a gig in Whelans with Nina Hynes in the late 90’s and after the first song her father, front and central shouted up, “will you ever tell that drummer (me) to shut the fuck up”. Not everybody loves drums, even in Glastonbury! 

I have found people who consider themselves hippies to be enterprising, earnest and free spirited. Except the ‘entitled’ ones, who always seem to expect to get something for nothing. Take everything and don’t pay for anything, seemed to be the dictum adopted of one skinny middle aged dredded man, who stole my mug of tea as we were loading in for the gig. I swiped it back, as I was as thirsty as a Troll. Maybe we all get a bit entitled at times!

It was then, as we were loading from backstage out onto the fire exit stairs, that a colourfully dressed middle aged New Age lady WALKED in to our backstage room and butted in to our conversation, saying 

“Where is my fucking scooter...Jesus, I left it right here?"

Now there was one large electric mobility scooter in that small room and I felt I couldn’t say anything or I’d be accused of taking the absolute piss out of her. How do you say I don’t know where the elephant is when there is an elephant standing beside you? 

“Oh no, it must have been stolen”. 

“Who would do something like that?”, she said looking around for a while. 

“Oh wait a minute, there it is” (one metre away from her), I didn’t recognise the red seat on it”. 

“I wouldn’t mind a hand getting it out “, she said in her mild Somerset accent. Not a ‘please’ in sight. So Eamonn, our ‘dep’ piper, dropped everything and tried to push the scooter out (even though she had the brake on). Then she hopped on and scooted off. Not a 'thank you' in sight. 'Entitled' some might say.

We played what we all felt was a great gig, now really in tune with each other by the third gig and we were given a great reception by a crowd who live to dance and love to dance. After loading out the gear, most of us trundled off in the splitter van towards the Wookey Hole Motel ( lots of juvenile jokes going on about what it rhymes with, for us schoolboys guffawing in the back). The Motel couple, upon our arrival, were wedged into their seats behind reception. It seemed like they were stuck there since Tor welcomed its first Christian settlement. 

“Have you any extra rooms?” I enquired. 

“Not really”

“Ok. Can we get some drinks as residents or is the bar closed? “

“Eh, Not really”

“Right. Can we get tea and toast in the morning at 7am before we leave ?”  

“Not really. Not open til 7.30."

Silence.

“There you go. Oh and can you make sure you leave the keys back in the morning please”? they asked.

“Not really”, I countered, as we started to shuffle along the formica walls and swirly carpets towards our bare functional rooms, barely functioning.

We got a few hours sleep before going back for the others in the village and got some hot fluffy pancakes chez local promoter, Thor of Tor Tours. That set us up for our drive to the ferry in Fishgaurd where the old 1970's painted up Sealink's one armed bandits, sliding tea cups, and trucker's lounge awaited us. I had a good chat on the ferry with Rossa O Snodaigh who plays mandolin, percussion, and whistle in the band and has also been managing the band heroically in recent times despite our best efforts to scupper him! We talked about how we could do with the help of a person with a range of management skills who doesn’t mind our crazy idiosyncrasies but gets to access life’s rich tapestries, crazy stories, and the interesting people we meet all over the world. In the meantime we have to help each other and not expect everything to be done for us. 'Entitled' some might say.