Category: Blog

Dylan is playing London again!

3 nights in Brixton in November. Hurrah!

Also, Garbage play Hammersmith Apollo in mid October.

Tickets for all go on sale this Friday.

London carries with it an air of depression. I find myself slipping into more and more unhappiness as I’m here. It’s been all go for more than the past couple of weeks. Between Scotland, Dublin, work and then Live 8, it’s been hectic. I haven’t had much time to think much, which being honest right now is a good thing. There is so much that I have to think about and to try and work out but I’m completly unsure where it will lead to and I’ve somewhat been avoiding it.

So it struck me yesterday afternoon. I was sitting at my computer and uploading my photos to Flickr. On a side note, I’m *really* pleased with some of them and I’m very happy that I got so many decent shots. Best perk from work ever. Anyway it struck me in a second, I’d gone from being happy to being unhappy. I think it was just the normality of sitting at my computer and carrying on. The holidays as they were are over and everything, everything goes back to normal. That, that I think is the killer. I don’t want it to be going back to that. No, I don’t know what it is that I want, it’s not what I have. Tying into everything else, Pink Flyod’s lyrics sum it up so well.

The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb

I don’t know what I want. Two seperte people mentioned that I looked happy last weekend, happier than in a long time and one of them went as far as to point out that I had been unhappy for a long time. I’m not sure the latter is true, I think that one can be neither happy nor unhappy and that is how I’d really describe myself for the past while.

I’m just over 5 years in London, 5 years away from Dublin. At the time, it wasn’t a huge move, I didn’t feel like there was a gap between me and the people I was leaving behind. But those gaps have closed up so much. There is a solid group of people back in Dublin that have somehow through some text messages and maybe 4 nights out a year become so much more important to me. And I mean the group, not just one person for those thinking otherwise!

So I don’t know. Work is picking up so much and while it’s scaring me a bit (ok a lot) it’s going well and there is as always the possibility of actually getting to do what I want and of course I am ever unsure what that is.

So Live 8 was on Saturday. I was there, I was working and I had such a fantastic day.

I got there around 8am to be issued with my pass to get in and out of both the arena at anytime but to the backstage and Golden Circle area. That was nice. We were handing out some laynards (necklaces with info on where to watch the gigs online to you and me) and that went down very well. They were nice little things, good souviners to remember the day with and they went like hotcakes. So we left the arena and handed them out for a while. Then we went back inside (straight through the main gates while the queue could only stare in horror) and manned our tents to do network/tech support and to help people sign the petition online. That was all good. Soundchecks were awesome. A full U2 set hours before they were due on stage with so few people there. No photos, it wouldn’t have been fair but so good.

Been sitting in draft for a day or so. I’ll type more on it later.

I am so tired.

Pink Floyd were awesome.

I started to write this out yesterday and got a while line into it. Perhaps I’ll do better today. I have some Trivium on and cranked right up and it’s doing me really fucking well this morning.

So right back a couple and off we go.

— Saturday 18th.
At what was the first ever joint Time Warner event in the UK, we were taken off to a showing of Batman Begins introduced by none other than Dick Parsons. He spoke for about 2 minutes, was funny and apologised to all the guys for not bringing along Katie Holmes so he went down pretty well. Then the movie. I enjoyed it a whole lot, it was very well made, fairly well written and mainly well acted. Some excellent moments with Bale really hitting Batman a couple of times. I loved how we first just heard Batman and saw the flashes of black when he started at the docks, it captured the myth stuff really well. However the rest of the fight scenes were pretty shit as there was constantly nothing shown. That was about my only complaint really. I enjoyed it, I will buy it and I may well go and see it again.

So after that, it was down to the Tattershall Castle for a drink or two. At which stage it kinda descended into the good kind of madness. ‘Twas just Dave and I left so we got ourselves a chess set, headed to the Porterhouse were we played and drank for a while and then had a quick pizza before heading to The Cittie of York for hooking up with the V at Jamie’s birthday. Lots more drinking and all was well. It was a good day all in all

— Sunday 19th.
A quiet morning and indeed a quiet afternoon. The evening was to be The Kings of Leon in Hammersmith with Andy. Due to meet up for a drink beforehand of course. I grabbed a paper and headed early to sit outside and get some reading done. It was really nice out, well over 30 degrees so that was good. Support Act for the evening was The Features who Andy rated so we got in early to see them and they were excellent, very impressed with them and I’ll be adding some of them to my collection soon. KOL were excellent as ever and as expected. I think that was the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen ’em and they never disappoint. Fantastic live band, some great catchy loud songs to get the crowd going and always a sell-out. Grand venue, I like the Apollo a whole lot, it’s good for bands like that, they really fill it with sound so that was good.

— Monday 20th.
Up early and off towards Heathrow to fly to Scotland. No bothers there at all, and up into Glasgow all well. Met up with Cath at the airport and then it was a quick taxi into the hostel. I was expecting dorms and was very impressed to get a room with bunk beds. It was all good. So we dropped off our stuff and went wandering. I was very disappointed with Glasgow, there wasn’t anything to it at all. We were bored within a couple of hours which wasn’t good. So we found a pub and started rounding up the Scottish troops. A lovely turnout ensured an evening of fun and games, moving onto King Tuts for an excellent excellent evening of song and pool and booze. It was nice to see old faces and catch-up. Carried on till around 2am when the neighbours in the hostel started banging on the walls we decided to call it a night. A good day all in all.

— Tuesday 21th.
A very quiet morning and then pretty much a quiet afternoon. We met up with Alastair in preparation for the gig that night and then met up with Craig for an afternoon of quick drinks before we took off to Hampden Park. He took us off to a lovely little Fenian pub, Bairds which I felt right at home in, but I don’t think everyone else was so happy. Was chatting away to the barman when I was getting the drinks in but others were being quiet. So another quick pint and then off to an old converted bank (quite like The Bank in Dublin) for a drink and to meet up with some other gig goers. Then off to the station and a quick train ride and short walk to Hampden Park. Nice enough place, we headed down into standing and got a decent enough spot. The gig was…good. The music was awesome, the sets rocked and the lads were on form. We got Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses which made me so very happy and the rest of the set was awesome. However there were two shitty things. The sound wasn’t the best The stadium is open air but fully enclosed circle and the echo was pretty damn poor, I wasn’t impressed with that. I was less impressed with the fucking Scottish. It was the worst gig crowd I’ve ever been in. No-one seemed to have a care about anyone else around them. They were jumpy, pushy and punchy. It wasn’t fun and really spoiled the gig for the the three of us. Not what I really wanted 🙁

Anyway it ended and we regrouped and walked back to the hostel. This took about an hour and wasn’t so bad at all. A bit of a chat when we settled back in and then to sleep…but not for very long. 4.30 in the bloody am the fire alarm goes off and we had to evacuate the hostel into the cold rain. Not good. Cleared in about 20 minutes I guess and then back to bed where I slept like a log for the rest of the night.

— Wednesday 22th.
Jon, one of the Scottish lads (honourary anyway) had taken the day off to show us around. So a nice breakfast, not too early and then a walking tour of Glasgow. There still isn’t much to it, but we had a nice enough walk along the river and around the old Necropolis. It was a long day with some good stuff. Then a nice dinner in a local Italian before going back to Tuts for a quick one. However, it was an over 14 night and there were lots of restrictions. Like you had to wear a wristband to show you were overage to be served and you could only get a single drink at a time. So just the one there before we moved on. Hit a couple of other pubs till we got to Waxy’s Glasgow where we finished off the night. A good one all in all.

— Thursday 23th.
Another quiet one. Not too much going on. Had a nice lunch and then pretty much went to the airport to fly to Dublin. Prestwick was small and nice. In and out no problem and into Dublin all on time. Hurrah.

— Friday 24th.
Now the day had come. U2 in Croke Park that evening. Due to various reasons, I had 3 spare tickets for that night. I had promised Jean and Liz tickets last time I was in Dublin and sorted them nicely. Emily unfortunately wasn’t free so Liz’s sister Deidre came along. I did some shopping in the morning, I wish there was a Dunnes Stores over here, so good for decent, cheap clothes. Then Liz rang to say she had taken a half day. Straight off into town for a drink and dinner beforehand and then the other two met us. A short walk into Croke Park, a stop off to get a proper t-shirt and boom onto the hallowed turf and man oh man what an atmosphere. It was pretty damn amazing. We got in about 15 minutes before they kicked off and had no trouble moving up towards the front. It was somewhat rainy but no-one really cared and indeed at times no-one ever noticed. What followed was pure magic. Just over 2 hours of U2 playing their home town and well over 80,000 happy people singing along and loving every second of it. It was pretty perfect. There was a moment when I looked up at the video screen, realised that it was raining on Bono and wondered how it wasn’t raining on me just about 30 feet away. It was…and had been for some time. Like I said, didn’t notice and didn’t care.

That one ended on a high and we made our way into town. A quick drink somewhere on O’Connell Street before moving on and upto The Village where pretty soon it was just Liz and myself as usual shooting the breeze until well after 5. A stop off in Eddie Rockets of course. All in all, a fantastic day, one of the best in a long long time.

— Saturday 25th.
Nick was coming over on Saturday. Himself and Iain and myself were due in Eastpoint on Monday for a training course. So I told him to come over a day early and come out and about around Dublin and so he did. Dropped his stuff in Malahide and then it was off into town. A very quick tour of some Dublin bars, first off Messr Maguires, then onto Pravda and finally The Bank. Then it was time for the real night out to begin. The venue was Thomas Reeds and everyone was out. There were a couple of new faces and even one that I’d not seen in about seven years or so. It’s nice when everyone grows up and forgets about the shit of the teenage years. A few minutes catchup and small talk and boom, it’s just another night out and away we go. It was a good night, in fact it was way better than a good night but that’s for later.

— Sunday 26th.
Went out to lunch in Giovanni’s in Malahide with my family and that wasn’t bad. Then a wander along the beach for a while after Iain showed up. That was nice. We dropped their stuff off at the hotel and went off into town. Back to The Bank for a nice dinner and then off to The Front Longue. Nick went home early claiming illness, he seems to have been unable to stomach the 10 pints of Guinness he had on Saturday night. For shame. Not too late a night there at all.

— Monday 27th.
Working all day. More so training and not really too much to say on that front. Into town that evening for a nice dinner out.

— Tuesday 28th.
A quick trip to see my grandmother followed by lunch in town with my dad and then coffee with Jean before back to collect my stuff and get to the airport. Flight was way late, there were major thunderstorms and we were flying through them. I believe it looked spectacular out the windows but I had an aisle seat and could not see that much. I don’t mind flying usually but my stomach had some issues this time. Got home around midnight and went straight to bed. Yay
sleep.

— Wednesday 29th.
Into work, new office time. It’s quite nice, alot more space than I was expecting and everything is going well so far. I’m pretty pleased with everything to be honest so something will go wrong soon enough. A quiet catch-up with the guys last night turned into quite a late night but it was all fun and good to sit and chat.

And that’s been the past couple of weeks. In other news:

It was pissing rain when I got up this morning, really really badly. And then it stopped, as I opened my front door to go out. So perhaps this will be a good day.

I’m going to Live 8 on Saturday. I’m working at it and I’m looking forward to it a whole lot. It’s going to be one hell of an event. There are some fantastic bands there, I want to see U2, R.E.M., Velvet Revolver and The Killers. The rest I can pretty much take or leave. I’m not sure what work entails just yet but I’m looking forward to the whole thing. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Achtung Baby is really U2’s best album. It’s all just so good. I’ve been on a big kick for them over the past week as you can imagine. The iPod has played ’em so much.

Reading wise, I just finished Homicide: a Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon and it was excellent. It was my second effort, I wasn’t in the mood the first time I tried and it can be quite dense but this time it flowed really nicely. I’m really into The Wire and so I wanted to make sure I gave the book a good try this time. Very glad I did. Between the airport and the flight back I bought, started and finished Ryanair: How a Small Irish Airline Conquered Europe by Siobhan Creaton. It was pretty good, amazing how much they actually did. I didn’t have a clue at the impact they had on the Irish market, nevermind in Europe and all that. Very enjoyable.

Work is interesting. Lots and lots of things going on. I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed but it’s not too much. I need to just sit down with lots of people and work through things. It should be all good, I just stress…lots. I have just now gotten my deadlines. *gulp*

In other other news, it was a hell of a weekend in Dublin. If anyone had suggested that to me back in the day I think I’d have just laughed and laughed and laughed. But it’s been an interesting year or so back in touch and catching up. It’s not that easy to trust people but some people make it so much easier than others.

Aside from all that, it was a tough night for a couple of people and somewhat ackward on more than once occasion. A lot of drinks and something else on my mind kept me fairly distant from lots of it but there was something in the air.

It’s just come full circle here. When I started writing this post early this morning, I was listening to Trivium’s Ascendency and in need of the metal now, I’ve just stuck it back on and kicked it up a notch.

Now another conference call. More later.

I live.

Life has such a way of getting complicated really quickly.

Leaving in 15 minutes for London.

I am alive and I am well.

Stuff is going on. Back in London on Tuesday and more then.

So this has been down for a while. Hosting trouble, it should be sorted soonish. I’m away in Dublin so I don’t really care too much about it. I do have such an urge to type but I’m not really doing so well at that.

“You turn me on to the idea of growing old”

An awesome lyric from a song by The Features.

I’m really tired. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow is lots of sleep.

I’m also getting really tired of secrets, carrying them for others even more than my own. I’m tired of it.

I’m away from tomorow evening. Scotland then Dublin. Will update sometime next weekend.