12th June 2007 - Ireland
Well, the alarm went off on Tuesday morning much to our disgust. To say we were knackered is an understatement. Duty called though and off we went to Cork. It was a lovely drive down there from Dublin, but all those country roads weren’t so good for the travel sickness. I think we were all suffering that day!
We arrived at the venue sometime in the afternoon and unloaded and set up as quickly as we could since we were looking forward to having dinner in an amazing restaurant we’d been to before. Once the sound check was over we went to the much anticipated restaurant. I have to say we built it up and it wasn’t that good. The pizzas were cold and the pasta wasn’t up to standard either. So if you’re listening at Luigi Malone’s.....sort it out. It just ain’t good enough.
In short, the gig was bloody marvellous and made up for the shakey start to the day. Thanks to all who came along and bought CDs!
Next day we were off to Dublin. There was no gig booked in but we had a lot of promo to do. We relaxed on the way there and played more cards. Yay!
We attended many interviews and pimped ourselves as usual. We returned once again to Balcony TV! The strangest set up I think we’ve ever seen. It’s an internet TV station set on the balcony of a flat above the busiest road in Dublin! We were all squashed in much like last time and banged out a couple of tunes while Gill and I danced merrily in the background.
After this the shop was shut! Off we went to the pub! It was a bit of a Weatherspoons affair but it was near the hotel so we weren’t caring....until we realised it was a fiver a beer!!! So we only stayed for a couple and made friends with the locals. Big hello to Hank our newest Hedrons buddy in Ireland......a great time had by all.
We went back to the hotel and played loads of tunes and drank the rider from the previous night. Rock n roll!
On Thursday we travelled to Belfast. This was more of a pub gig and was really busy! Everybody in Belfast seemed to be hitting the town that night but this is normal any night of the week!
When we were sitting in the tour bus outside the venue a drunk man came up to that van and peed right up against it! He couldn’t see that we were in the bus due to the mirrored glass but we could see him alright! How disgusting! We banged the windows at him so he’d put it away but he wasn’t listening. He then proceeded to stand there and light a fag in celebration! Cheek. He didn’t even wash his hands!
Video of said incident here:
After the trauma of that, we went on to play a good gig in Lavery’s Bar. Another successful evening and more new fans lured in! We didn’t party this night at all since we had to get up at 5am to the ferry home in the morning...tragic or what. I did suggest that we stay up all night but no one was up for it.
By Friday lunchtime, we were back in Weegie land. Aaaahhh. That was the sound of me (Bagpuss) landing on my bed for a power nap!
Soup x
*Update - There were other gigs on this tour. Frightened Rabbit played a few gigs with us in Galway and possibly Cork but this was before I took over as the full time blog writer, so unless they can be salvaged from emails sent out from thehedrons.com newsletters in 2007, then they are sadly lost. Hoping they turn up! (29/07/2017)