Thursday, August 17, 2006

August Long Weekend

August 4th- 6th

Friday


We were invited by Slev (my bass player…and his real name is Paul) for a night out in Howth, which we been meaning to do for a while. We’ve been putting it off as it’s hard to go and party there since we don’t know how to get back late at night once the dart stops running. Slev said we could crash at his place as he has a spare room, so we jumped on the opportunity.

We got home after work, changed, packed what we needed for the night and hopped on the dart. We arrived at around 830pm and were met by Slev at the church (pretty easy meeting place as there is only one church in Howth).

Slev lives with his girlfriend, Anna, Mark (the drummer) and some other guy. Their house is really nice, big and pretty modern. You would never think it by looking at the outside of it. We sat down, had a beer, and then at 9pm walked down the street to Cibo, for dinner. (Anna and Slev both work at Cibo and we were told the food is really good). Slev recommended the steak and since Jess and I have not had a decent steak since Ottawa, we were looking forward to it. We sat and had some wine and appetizers while everyone got ready to order. Then Slev actually took our order and made sure that the owner cooked our steaks, as he does them the best. We all, except Mark’s girlfriend (who was there as well. Mark was at some recording session) had the steak and man they were fantastic! Jess ate all of hers even though it was little too pink for her liking…that’s how good they were. It came with a nice semi-spicy mushroom sauce, asparagus and baby potatoes. YUM!

After we ate there was more wine (which I opted not to have as it puts me to sleep, and went with the beer) and sat on the back patio talking, etc. Another of Slev’s friends showed up and Mark eventually showed up as well. After he ate, we decided to go to the local pub as they have Trad Music on Friday nights and as I was sick of drinking lager and wanted a Guinness.

At this point it was about midnight so we knew we only be able to get 2 pints in. The pub had a nice atmosphere and good pints so we stayed till closing talking and just hanging outside on the patio, which was nice because in the city there are not many patios.

After the pub closed we went back to the restaurant (it was closed as well, but all the workers and managers were inside, hanging out and drinking) for more drinks. At this point, about 2am, as we all know, things just get messy. Mind you nothing really got messy till about 3:30am or so. Hahaha.

I talked for a bit with 2 Polish guys who work there and Slev was showing Jess how to pour pints…there was some dancing…there were some laughs…there was some glasses breaking…there was a big Irish man sick cause he told me I couldn’t drink Whiskey, so I said “have some Jack Daniels with me” and, well, that was it for him.

After that, for God knows what reason, Slev grabbed 2 more bottles of red wine and we headed upstairs to, I guess the house where the owner of the pub lives. It was extremely hot in there, way to hot for me, so I went outside in the back patio to sit, and well since I get up now at 6am everyday, and it was about 4am at that point, and with a full stomach and little beer buzz I lay down on the bench and went to sleep. Eventually I was woken up as everyone decided it was time to go back to Slev’s and sleep. I was disappointed as I had a nice sleep on a very comfortable bench and the fresh sea air was great. We made it back to Slev’s in one piece and went to sleep. That night ended around 5am, which we rarely do, so we were more tired than drunk.

Saturday

We fully woke up and got ready and left at about 230pm, and walked to the harbour front to find some lunch. The town was buzzing with people, as it was a nice hot sunny day. Lots of sailboats out as well.

Long story short, we got home around 4pm, and were pretty out of it. At 6pm I was in need of a serious nap and it must have been a miracle as Jess actually let me take one.
I woke up around 8pm and we had some dinner and just sat around taking it easy. Eventually we went to Pearse Tavern for a pint as it was Saturday night and we didn’t want to miss anything interesting…the craic, really.

2 quick pints later we headed home. It was only midnight but we went to bed as I had to get up early and catch a bus to Tullamore to play a gig at the Castlepalooza Festival.

Sunday

I got up at around 9am and did all the morning stuff, packed a bag with some clothes just in case and started to walk to the bus station around 1130am. It is only about a 15min walk to the bus stop, just on the other side of the Liffey. I got there at about 12pm, SOAKED as it really started to rain as soon as I stepped out the front door. But that’s Ireland! I still prefer the rain to snow. I got my ticket and waited for Slev to show up. We got on the bus at 1230pm and off we were to Tullamore. “Click ‘o me heel, tap ‘o me stick, be in Tullamore quicki-d-quick” You have to hear Slev say that with his FULL out Irish accent, he sounds like a Leprechaun…it’s hilarious. He got me doing it too. Anyways… So the bus ride was crap, as 80% of the Irish roads are, well, not really roads. It’s not the Queensway here! Once you’re out of the city it’s bumpy, windy roads. We both fell asleep and were woken up about 1hour later in Edenderry. We both thought we passed Tullamore, but then were told we needed to switch buses and hop on the one waiting to take us further. I swear, travelling by bus in Ireland is an adventure on It’s own. I actually like it. So, we got on the other bus and with in 10minutes we realized the driver was a madman. Imagine you’re on a bus on those roads I was talking about, winding left and right at about 80-100km per hour. MAD!

On the way there we were held up by a “home coming” festival in some small town, so we had to let the parade walk by. Very interesting.

We eventually got off in Tullamore, once we realized we must be out of the main city area since we were driving on those country roads again. We asked the bus driver where the stop for the Castle was and he said it was about 5min back and that he made an announcement for that stop. Ya right, sure he did! That’s why we both didn’t get off? Thankfully the Castle was outside of the city so it was only a 5min walk. It would have been about a 20min walk to the city.

We didn’t really know if we had to register at the gate or what, we just assumed since we were on in about 15minutes we better get our butts to the stage (which was another 5min walk thru the forest), so we just walked by the security without getting stopped somehow and were on our way. Darragh called us pretty much at the same time and said he would come and pick us up in the car. He came, we got in, we drove to the Castle. Once we got to the Castle entry gates, they asked Slev and I for our passes. “Uhhhhhhhh, what passes? Darragh do you have them?”
“Your passes are at the main entry gates.”
“Oh!”
So we got back in the car and drove to main front gates that Slev and I just walked pass.

We finally got our passes and the trend of misspelling my last name continues…. I was Lucas Paulch, pretty close though, I’ve seen much worse.

We got in the car again and drove back to the Castle entry gates.
The set up was great, so Irish. Forest, Castle, green rolling hills (small rolls really) and of course, sheep. We got this show last minute so we didn’t play on the main stage, we played on the 2nd one. It all happened pretty quickly. We walked in, went toward the stage at the same time Mark got off the main stage (he covered drums for his brothers band) and met us at the Budvar stage. We walked on, set up, did a quick line check to make sure everyone had power and sound, and BAM. “Hi we are Angel Pier” and off we went.

The sound was pretty crap, but we played well and people were into it and wanted to hear more, but we currently have 8 songs and, well, we can actually do them all in about 30min. Our sets are pretty short. If we talk we stretch it out to 35min give or take. All the songs are perfect length, so long that they bore you. We just get to the point.

So we played, we got off, went to the band area inside the Castle which was just great to see had some pop corn and a pint and Mark, Slev and I decided to head back to Dublin. We were driven to the main bus stop in town and had an hour to spare. We decided we all needed to eat so we just went in to the nearest pub (Fact: Tullamore is smaller then Kanata and has over 100 pubs) to eat and have a pint. Before we knew it we were on the bus back to Dublin.

I got home around 8pm and Jess made plans to meet Tom and Sarah, so we did. The rest of the night we just sat around having a couple of pints in couple of different pubs, chatting away.