Imagine St. Patrick’s Day without litter, overt drunkenness or irony. Now imagine it in 90 degree heat, high humidity and the cleanest of clean high-rise air-conditioned modernity. With a lot of green water in the fountains. In September. Welcome to Kansas City Irish Fest.
As everyone on KC will remind you should you make the slip, you really aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. You’re actually in the state of Missouri, at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers in the deepest American Mid West. It’s cow country and right-thinking conservative American heartland, but like everywhere in the universe it has an Irish community, and many people who are either convinced they qualify for associate membership of that community or who just like Darby O’Gill And The Little People, dodgy Celtic rock and green-dyed liquids are set to turn out for the three-day green extravaganza.
It’s Friday, the first day of the festival, and I drag myself bleary from yesterday’s flight out of bed to make an 8 am appointment at “Q102 Young Country”. Ronan Collins drives me through the city, burning a small oilfield in the engine of his unfeasibly large vehicle as we go. Ronan is a Dub and it was he who talked me into this over the preceding months, using his DCU Old Boy connections with Barry Murphy and myself to suck me into this bizarre road trip. He points out places of interest on the way. I don’t know if it’s Kansas City or my jet lag, but he seems to be pointing out identical right-angled road intersections for the most part. And fountains. It is the proud boast of Kansas City that it has more public fountains than the city of Rome. That’s Rome, Italy. I get the feeling that this is probably the result of a committee sitting down to decide what distinguishing feature could be arranged for the city, picking this one at random and commissioning someone to build precisely 281 of the buggers by Tuesday. And, oh yeah, can you build in a green dye feature? That’s bound to come in handy.
I’m a bit nervous about doing an interview in a “Young Country” radio station. Are Stetsons and a broken heart compulsory? I hope not, because I haven’t got a broken heart. I needn’t have worried. In fact, it turned out I’d been there before, in a weird sort of way. In Dublin, in Limerick, in Sligo and now I can confirm in Kansas City, all radio at that hour of the morning is made in a tiny studio with room for two of the three presenters and the guest. So the totally wacky guy and the just-as-loud-but-a-bit-cooler guy talk to you in the room while the token female (preferably, as in this case, pregnant just to further ameliorate the morning testosterone count) lurks outside and chips in harmlessly from some hidden point in the ether.
Wacky Guy gets in as many of his Irish points of reference as he can. At one point he is talking in a Scottish accent and banging on about leaks. I try to interject a note of sanity into proceedings, but since the only way of doing this is to shout louder than Wacky Guy, it sounds like me and him are having some sort of hysterical Hiberno-Missourian bitch fight in the studio while Cooler Guy holds us apart from each other with his mighty workout arms outstretched from his below-average-height frame. Since this is precisely the effect I like to achieve during media appearances, I leave very pleased and go to breakfast.
The comedy shows aren’t until Sunday, but we decided to fly me over early to do as much media as possible, in the hope that someone would turn up to view such a radical addition to the KC Irish Fest programme. And radical it is. The bulk of the programme is populated by traditional musicians and other people who can sort of play traditional music, but who compensate for any lack of finesse with an electric backline and a creel-load of amplification. Somewhere in the bowels of the Crown Centre, an ultra modern complex owned by The Hallmark Gift Company, small girls dance to the death in the Kansas City Feis. Texans in kilts are running rampant around the place and there are an extraordinary number of Scottish people involved. (I can only assume that Christy Moore and Sharon Shannon are kicking arse at the Dallas Caledonian Fest this weekend.)
There’s been a shortfall in the organisation however, and apart from my morning radio interview I am basically left kicking my heels in the hotel bar waiting for the other “Stars Of The Irish Comedy Cellar” to arrive. (That’s how we’re billed, okay. If a bunch of Scottish Texans can put on skirts and pogo around being quintessentially Irish then I don’t feel so bad about it.) By the time Barry Murphy and Brendan Dempsey sweep in looking for steak, I have made the acquaintance of a number of US Navy Submarine veterans who are having their annual reunion there, and a Christian Music promoter who readily admits he’s in it for the money. After me putting the issue to him with Paxman-esque doggedness, he finally admits that some of the biggest bands are as well. Everyone I meet is part Irish (one third Irish in one biology-defying case) so I struggle a little to breathe in the pure Irish atmosphere generated by my companions. We plan Sunday’s shows. The main idea is to do a lot of small things very fast, hoping by pacey delivery to circumnavigate any cultural misunderstandings that might be anticipated.
The next day, Saturday, Murphy goes off for his obligatory round of golf while Brendan and myself have duties to attend to. I stand in front of a thousand people on the main music stage and plug the comedy shows. I manage to make them laugh which is a relief, but we’re not selling many tickets. Figures mentioned include “slow”, “quiet” and “ten”. Meanwhile Brendan Dempsey is making a personal appearance at a special showing of “Waking Ned Devine” a couple of floors above the Feis. You can tell Brendan is a star, not just because people really do keep coming up to him, excusing themselves and asking is he “the lottery guy” from “Waking Ned”, but also because he has been given the air-conditioned gig. It’s hot and the humidity is making the distinction between “air” and “water” a running gag in itself.
Saturday evening we end up dining on the finest of steak in a former speakeasy, “The Majestic”. Our half-cut, jet-lagged Dublin ebullience is mistaken for charm and the waitress gets us into the members-only cigar and whiskey club on the third floor where we are astounded not only by the quality of its wares but the unexpected political incisiveness of the youngest-looking Vietnam vet in the world, Scott, who runs this fine den of leather and aromas. If you ever do go to Kansas City, this place is the one absolute must.
Sunday. We’ve made it. Barry and myself attempt a couple more show plugs from the music stages. We manage to pick on the only unemployed white man in Kansas City, who hates us, but again we make them laugh a bit. Ticket sales are now soaring, and words like “better” and “twenty” are bandied around with abandon. In the event, we get good crowds to both our shows. Only a few old-timers snore through the show. For the most part we are received with warm beery enthusiasm. The organisers are happy because a few hundred people came to something many of them thought was sheer madness, and we are happy because we get away with it. Then the jet lag hits us like a thousand-strong herd of cattle and we slink off to bed. Last thing I see of the KC Irish Fest is a man from Arklow playing his bagpipes outside the front door of the hotel, while inside in the lobby some diehard Texan Scots dance the Walls.
The next morning we reassemble, and to a man don our red slippers, click our heels together three times and practically roar “There’s no place like home”.