No time to kill

It's my 51st birthday today. Leaving aside the fact that it only seems like this time last week rather than this time last year that I had my 50th birthday this means that I'm now officially in my early fifties as opposed to, well, being 50. Again it doesn't seem that long ago that I would have considered that to be an impossible distance in the future; time flies as I said in the last posting, whether you're having fun or not.
I started my 51st year with an Upper Cut gig, and I'm pleased to say that I'm starting my 52nd year in the same way - we're at The Dolphin in Uxbridge this Friday, the same night as the opening ceremony of The London Olympics. I guess this means that everybody will be at home watching it on television (well, let's face it, no ordinary person can afford a ticket to be there in person can they?) and so there'll be no one at the gig. Bah! Oh well - we'll have a good time anyway!

The festival poster.

In the meantime the last gig of my 51st year (keep up at the back there!) was the first Ruts D.C. show of 2012, headlining the Thursday night of The Seasplash Festival at Fort Punta Christo in Pula, Croatia.
Sometime around 7.25 a.m. my Metropolitan Line train sat for just that little bit too long at Harrow On The Hill station. I exchanged a few nervous looks and bleary smiles with my fellow passengers until the tension was broken by a disembodied voice over the speakers telling us that the destination of the train had changed, and that it was now terminating at Harrow On The Hill. Relative disinterest immediately turned into panic followed by a near-stampede to get on to the train waiting on the adjacent platform - I soon realised that as I was carrying a bag, guitar and (for the first time on an excursion such as this) a pedalboard there was no way that I was going to get on board the already-congested train. Curses! Resigning myself to waiting for the next arrival I stumbled somewhat dejectedly back towards my original train, whereby I heard the driver saying something along the lines of 'well I don't know what that was all about but we're definitely going to Aldgate' and instigating another stampede in the process. I nearly got stuck in the doors, but even got my old seat back. An annoying little incident, which pales into insignificance compared to what happened next... 

The Adriatic Sea as seen
from Fort Punta Christo.

After getting a grown-up to help me to get my ticket for The Stansted Express (a rather optimistic name under the circumstances as we shall see...) I was directed to platform 2 at Liverpool Street station where said train was ready to leave. I always think it's good to be early getting to airports, and the 8.25 train should get me there with plenty of time to spare. Within a minute or so I was on my way - or was I? Looking around the carriage it was very quiet - where were all the people carrying baggage for their flights? And shouldn't this be a newer, more luxurious train? Hmm... after a couple of stops a chap got on and sat opposite me; I swallowed hard and asked the question - his reply of 'Enfield' was definitely not one that I wanted to hear... 
To cut a long story short (for once!) I eventually made it to Stansted Airport at 10.40 - the gate for our flight was closing at 11.05. Tour manager Pablo had left my tickets with in his words 'a very helpful lady' at the information desk in Area A, the Ryanair last minute check desk was suitably (and surprisingly) swift, the lady at the outsize baggage section took her time a bit under the circumstances and the £5 that I paid for priority security clearance proved to be well worth the money. When I got the gate 41 (they're always a long way off when you're late aren't they? Still at least I now hold the World land speed record...) I found everyone waiting to get on board, and then waited for 15 minutes before the queue started moving. What was all the fuss about eh?  

The view from the stage
during our soundcheck

After a thankfully uneventful flight we arrived at Trieste Airport (yes, I know that's in Italy, but this is Ryanair remember) where we met our driver Al and made the 2-and-a-bit hour journey from Italy to Croatia, passing through Slovenia on the way. I'd never been to any of the countries before, and so would have liked to have seen a bit more of them but found myself drifting in and out of consciousness as we travelled. Well, it had been an early start and a somewhat stressful morning so I guess that was to be expected, but what I did see was often spectacular, and the weather was absolutely splendid.

Seamus and the ill-fated
Hammond Organ

When we arrived at Fort Punta Christo another band was soundchecking so food and beer were both located (and were both excellent) before we set up our gear - I had a Fender Super Reverb combo which I'd not played through before, and I hope I get to play through one again as it sounded terrific. I was also rather relieved that my effect pedals all worked on 110 volts - I'd chosen the power adaptor as it specifically said that it worked on any voltage, but you never know do you? Seamus was well pleased (initially at least) with having a real Hammond Organ and Leslie speaker to use and Segs got a bass sound pretty much straight away; Dave had a bit of work to do before the drums were to his liking but everything looking good it was time for us to try a song... everything went horribly wrong immediately - the organ was flat by nearly a semitone. Attempts to rectify the situation (turning it off and on again - apparently there's not much else that you can do!) proved fruitless, the most likely cause seeming to be that we were running off a generator rather than mains electricity. Fortunately one of the other bands lent Seamus a keyboard and everything sounded good at last.

Here's where we stayed.
Nice isn't it?

There was just time to go to our (excellent) apartments to change and sample some locally distilled beverage courtesy of our very friendly hosts before getting back to the venue around half an hour before showtime. This was to be our first 'full' show following our 35 minute sets supporting The Alabama 3 last year - we played an hour-and-a-bit long set to an audience that increased in both size and appreciation as our show progressed. On the downside my guitar went off momentarily a few times before eventually going off completely - the pedalboard seemed to be the problem, which was cured by, you've guessed it, unplugging it and plugging it back in again. Then the vocal monitors stopped working. Bah! Despite the technical problems it was a great gig, and afterwards Pablo seemed particularly overwhelmed by our performance. Or maybe it was the free beer? 
With the next band starting their set in the background Segs, Dave and Molara gave a television interview; there's more alcohol and the promise of some Mexican food but Seamus and myself decide that it's been a long enough day and ask Al to drive us back to where we're staying. As we're getting into the van an enthusiastic young man stops us and says that we were amazing. It's good when that happens!


And we made the newspapers too -

I wonder what the headline says - any ideas?

Ships in the night

This posting was written more-or-less as soon as I arrived home, and it's somewhat disjointed structure reflects my tiredness at the time. I've thought about re-writing it but it seems to sum the previous 2 days up for me. See what you think...

Arriving at an airport at 6.45 on a Wednesday morning isn't always an enjoyable thing to do; on this occasion it wasn't too painful, and as I picked my way through several gangs of holidaying lads I half expected them all to wearing t-shirts that we'd printed in the shop. (We've been doing rather a lot of that lately!) I was just paying a small fortune for a thimble full of coffee and a plastic croissant from The Stansted Landslide (that's what it said it was called on the till, honest! You may know it better as this...) when a text message arrived from Pete - 'How are you doing mate?' was the cheery question; my reply of 'bored, tired, fed up - usual Wednesday morning, except I'm at Stansted Airport' seemed to go down well. I was sat attempting to drink coffee that was hotter than the surface of the sun when Pete, his wife Jayne and P.R. man Paul arrived. When we checked in with B.M.I. Baby I received the surprising news that I was allowed to carry my guitar on to the aircraft as hand luggage. I don't recall ever being able to do that before, although it may have had something to do with the fact that there were only 30 or so people on the flight. The flight to Belfast passed quickly due in no small part to the latest copy of 'Vive Le Rock!' magazine, and it was strange to walk straight out through arrivals without having to look for outsize baggage. A short taxi ride later we were checking in at The Stormont Hotel - I'm sharing room 234 with Matt who's arrived on another flight, and we've got everything from Them Crooked Vultures and Howlin' Wolf playing on the iPod dock in our room before very long. We're here for a showcase performance of 'White Star', a new musical based on the story of The Titanic. Pete and Paul are involved in promoting this and another show called 'Celtic Dreams' which is also being showcased at the same event at The Andrews Memorial Hall in nearby Comber. The music for the show has been written by Sam Davidson and John Wilson, both of whom play in the reformed version of Rory Gallagher's old band Taste. (John is the original drummer in the band.) I met Sam when we played in Belfast a couple of years ago (click here for the story) and had been given some demo recordings to learn the songs from as well as talking to him a couple of times on the phone. I spent much of the afternoon with Sam at Holywood Studios (which he and John run) going through the multi-track recording of 'The Road To Paradise' deciding which guitar parts we would play live and which ones would be left on the backing track. He also played me some recent Taste recordings - they're about to change their name to WMD and release a new album which judging by what I heard should be well worth hearing.

After returning to the hotel and catching up on some phone calls we all went to The Ganges Indian restaurant in Holywood where my vegetable masala was both very red and very nice. Myself and Matt then spent a couple of hours in the hotel bar (oh yes!) before retiring to our room for some cans of lager (Matt bought them earlier - good boy!) and to watch an excellent live set from Beady Eye on the television.

Hay fever meant that I woke up on Thursday morning with sinus-induced deafness. Matt bellowing 'BREAKFAST FINISHES IN 15 MINUTES!' finally got through to me and a stumble down to the restaurant more-or-less woke me up. A lazy morning followed (good!) with punk rock on the iPod and tennis on the telly before Walter the driver took Matt and myself to The Andrews Memorial Hall for our allotted 3 o'clock arrival time. As we arrived 'Celtic Dreams' were running through their part of the evening so I walked down to the shops to get something to eat. Back at the venue everything's set up and ready to go - we're D.I.-ing into the P.A. rather than using amplifiers and after a couple of run throughs 'The Road To Paradise' is sounding good.

The evening's event lasted about an hour; I was on stage for around 4 minutes, by far the shortest performance I've ever been part of. Pete gave a short introduction during which he referred to the show as 'Maiden Voyage' - looks like he's changed the title? - before leaving the stage. He walks past us with the words 'listen out for the seagulls'; on our cue we walk out on to the stage, pick up our instruments and await the start of the track. As it begins we exchange anxious looks when we realise that our guitars aren't audible - they finally come on during the second verse to our collective relief. Our harmonised solo goes well, and then suddenly the song is over and we've completed our part of proceedings. As we walk around to the front of the hall we smile and shake hands - it went well. Good. With an audience largely consisting of potential investors it was a night to give a good performance, and from what I saw and heard everyone did.

Back at our hotel there's food and drink a-plenty; I'm given a bowl of something that's supposed to be a vegetarian meal although it looks and smells a bit fishy (literally!) to me. I end up with a few roast potatoes, a dollop of coleslaw and, since there's no cutlery left, a teaspoon. Sitting in a roomful of millionaires (well, that's what I decided that they were!) I felt angry, sad, depressed - eventually I retired hurt to room 234 where Pete came and found me, asking if I was alright, looking really worried... yes I'm alright, just want to be on my own for a while. I laid on the bed gazing absentmindedly at an episode of 'The Mentalist' on the T.V. - I reflected on the previous day or so, mostly spent in a very expensive hotel for a few minutes on stage followed by a plate of lukewarm spuds. What was all that about? And why hadn't I noticed how good looking the woman that plays the head detective in 'The Mentalist' is before now?

Matt arrived back in the room and snapped me out of my introspection with the suggestion that we go for a drink. Good man.

As I fought to switch my alarm off at 5.15 this morning I realised that it probably hadn't been a particularly good idea to finish working your way through several pints of Guinness less than 4 hours before you're due to leave for the airport to catch your flight home. Oh well. I shook myself awake and decided that with a flight this early it doesn't matter what time I'd gone to bed, I'd still be tired. Probably. We weren't quite so successful at getting my guitar to qualify as hand luggage this time, although that may have something to do with the flight being nearly full. One of the check-in girls tell me that they can walk it on for me and if there's a spare seat then it can go in that, otherwise it will have to go in the hold. Hmm... I once read somewhere that B.B. King always buys an airline ticket for his guitar in the name of Lucille King and sits next to it during the flight - when I was asked if I'd like to move from my seat in row 19 to sit next to my guitar in row 3 I jumped at the chance. Childish? Me? Yeah, right... as I fastened the seatbelt around it I thought about asking the stewardess to take a picture of me and my guitar for a laugh but instead contented myself with a bleary smile. It's a simple life sometimes.

Just before 8 a.m. I was back at The Stansted Landslide (why on Earth is it called that?!?) paying a small fortune for a thimble full of coffee and a plastic croissant; I then sat in the same seat that I'd been sitting in when I met up with Pete, Jayne and Paul just over 2 days earlier. And so it goes.

I got home just after 10 a.m. - I'll let you know what happens with the projected production of 'White Star' (or whatever it ends up being called) as soon as there's any news...