Tom McShane

Irish Tour: Part One

June 26th, 2008 Posted in gigs, news, releases

To support the release for the Fighter/God Says single, Escape Act and my band have embarked on a series of shows around Ireland. It’s a sort of joint headline tour, though the dates are spread out over several weekends so that those of us who work don’t have to exhaust the all important good-will of our employers! The full tour dates are as follows (though we’ve been playing a few additional dates separately as well):

Here’s a little rundown of the shows I played last week.

Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs // Auntie Annies Porter House Belfast // 19th June
Last Thursday I had the extreme pleasure of supporting Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs. I’m a huge Holly Golightly fan so this was a really big deal for me. I saw her play live once before, back in 2003 I think when Fortune Cookie put her and the Chalets on in the Pavilion. That was a great show. Happy times. She was due to play here again last year or the year before with the Brokeoffs but when I arrived at the venue myself and a good few other disappointed punters were told the show had been cancelled due to a sewage leak or something.

This time around the show went off without a hitch. It was my first experience of her two piece line up with Lawyer Dave aka the Brokeoffs. It’s awesomely compelling. They both play guitar and he operates a dismantled drum kit via a variety of foot pedals. After the show they gave me a copy of a bootleg album called “Nobody Will Be There” which they’re only selling on the tour. It’s fantastic and very much captures the live experience. They have a huge sound for a two-man band. We also traded vinyl; I gave them Fighter/God Says and they gave me a split 7” they’ve done with The Stratford Sparrows.

It was a great night and we managed to sell quite a few pre-release copies of the single as well as some copies of Departures and a couple of t-shirts too. As for our performance my band played a faultless set but I was very uncomfortable on stage. It’s the worst case of stage fright I’ve had in a long time. I really don’t know where it came from but I could barely open my eyes on stage and any hope of having a witty repartee with the audience went out the window. Plus Conor was unavailable on the night so we played a bit of a rock set with Ross on Guitar and a Rich redrafted on bass and Nick on drums. It was good fun but slightly compromised in terms of the songs I could play. Also, I opened the set with a few solo numbers. I really doing like doing that, I think solo numbers are okay within a set, it allows to work with the dynamic of the set, but just to start solo, then bring a band on… it’s bullshit. It lacks imagination and it’s confusing for an audience.

Fighter/God Says Tour Date 1 // Mason’s Derry // 20th June
This was great fun; a real road trip. Nick, Conor and myself headed up together to the soundtrack American Graffiti. Sweet! I didn’t quite know what to make of Mason’s at first. Within minutes of our arrival two boyos were ejected when a drunken argument graduated into a full-on fist fight and a short time later some young lady threw a strop and started throwing stuff about the bar. To be fair, the atmosphere at that point was akin to a saloon in the Wild West.

But things improved and by the time we took to the stage everything was great. The sound engineer and the staff were very helpful, friendly people and the clientele were good old fashioned, good natured revellers. The bouncers did good work keeping the spide-riot out on the street and not in the bar.

A local woman took quite a shine to Rich too. Here is a short extract from their discourse:

Enamoured lady: Hey, has anyone ever told you that you look like Louis Theroux?

Rich: Er… no.

Enamoured lady: You do. I love Louis Theroux. I watch a lot of documentaries, so I do.

Rich: Really?

Enamoured lady: Can I buy you a drink? Let me get you a Jägerbomb

Rich: No thanks, I wouldn’t drink that stuff: my body is a temple.

Enamoured lady: I worship at your temple.

Rich: *gulp*

Rich Dale:

Rich Dale lookalike, Louis Theroux:

Both bands played excellent shows and I got to meet the legendary Stephen McAuley. He’s a really great guy and we got on very well. If he were eligible to run and I were eligible to vote in the presidential elections, he could most certainly count on my support! After much vodka was disposed of we hit the road back to Belfast. I think we got in at about 4am. Anyways: here are a few snaps:

Nick & Conor on Derry’s walls:

Me:

Chris, Escape Act:

Ross & I:

In-Store Show // Back Beat Records Belfast // 21st June
Back Beat Records is, unless I’m very much mistaken, one of only two remaining independent record shops in Belfast. It’s recently changed hands and the new proprietor, Robert Holmes has big ideas for the place. He and his pal, Marty Neill are certainly to be admired for attempting to reverse the trend closure after closure. I wish them the best of luck.

Each Saturday they’ll be putting on a series of acoustic In-Store shows. I played the first of these last weekend. It was great and I would recommend any local bands/musicians to contact the guys about playing there. The atmosphere was really warm and welcoming and the turn out was good, especially considering it was the first one. Robert, himself a singer/songwriter, played a set too. The star of the show though was without a doubt Robert’s four year old daughter, Katie who sang a song she wrote about her baby sister, entitled “I Love You, Evie”. It was a lovely day…

Me:

Robert Holmes:

Katie:

Backbeat Records: