Dara Do Slane

Howya Mammy, guess where I am? On the stage at Slane.
I never thought I d see the day: I really am on stage at one of the biggest music events in the world. OK, so it s 9am in the morning and there s shag all people here yet, but in my mind this is a dream realised, OK? And if I want to share the moment with my mother that s OK too, isn t it? Unfortunately, there are still too many people around for me to perform my celebrated air guitar solo and do a quick Bono impression along the front of stage, but hey, you can t have it all, can you?
You never quite get used to the spectacle that is Slane. I can still remember my first time entering the natural amphitheatre that makes up the venue a few years ago, where the grass rolls down towards the large stage, and Slane Castle looms on the hilltop with a regal, almost unearthly presence. There s something special about a Slane gig alright, something magical. There s a wonderful atmosphere around, everyone is in top form and Lord Henry Mountcharles seems to have a hotline to the Big Man when it comes to the weather. I love Slane.
Half an hour earlier, I m on board the Barney Bus, so-called because it used to be painted the same lurid purple as the child-friendly dinosaur. This morning, Barney has a full house. It has been a popular misconception that Dara is frontman Dara O Toole, plus a backing band, but that could not be further from the truth. In reality, Dara is made up of 10 individuals, who work and play as a team.
There s Dara himself, quiet and soft spoken for a frontman until he takes to the stage. Andy, the guitarist, is as chatty and amiable as you could hope to meet. John, the keyboard player, later confesses that he was extremely worried about having to spend a whole day in the company of a journalist. Darragh, on drums, spends most of the day getting photos taken with his young son and a host of celebrities. Mick, the bassist, oozes laidback cool. Josie, who shares vocal duties with Dara, seems to constantly have a smile on her face, and of course there s the funkiest string quartet in the world: Una, Katie, Rosie and Eimear.
Then there s Bren, the light man, who, legend has it, doesn t even stop talking in his sleep. Michael, who looks after the backline as well as driving the Barney Bus, spent most of the 1980s in dodgy British rock bands and was a regular in Kerrang! and Metal Hammer. And there s Mark, the tour manager/sound man, widely acknowledged as one of the best festival engineers in Europe, who has worked with everybody from Van Morrison to Faithless.
It s about 8:45am when we pull into the Castle grounds, which at this time are surrounded by a few hundred of the scariest looking security guards I have ever seen. They stare at the bus and we instantly feel like goldfish in a bowl, surrounded by great white sharks.
Jaysus, they look like they floated across the field with the mist, notes Bren, to a chorus of nervous laughs. Andy starts humming Duelling Banjos from Deliverance. We re waved through and before long, we re all tucking into a tasty breakfast backstage. Then myself, Dara and Andy decide to check out the stage itself, cue the conversation with Mammy Walshe. Both Dara and Andy admit to a hint of nerves at the sheer size of it the stage itself could comfortably host a five-a-side game.
A quick tour of the Castle later, we arrive back at Dara s dressing room, one of a number of prefabs behind the stage, at about 11am. They re not due on stage until 12:30, but already you can almost smell their excitement.
Fast forward an hour and a quarter and The Screaming Orphans have just come off stage, having warmed the early morning crowd up nicely. I m standing backstage, resplendent in a crew t-shirt which says White Stallion Roadies Productions: Dara Slane 2000 , generously donated by Bren. I m trying to look inconspicuous while they go through their warm-ups, but the only thing I can compare it to is a team dressing room in the few minutes before a big match.
Andy and Darragh are stretching, limbering up; John looks nervous as he sips on a can of beer Dutch courage , he winks at me; Mick is bouncing, eyes closed; Josie looks the most relaxed of them all. The string section are warming up, trading rosin for their bows and going through last-minute details. All the while, Dara prowls from one side to the other, silent, psyching himself up for one of the band s biggest gigs to date. The excitement is so palpable I find myself getting nervous for them, and have to physically stop myself from doing some quick muscle stretches in sympathy. Two minutes before showtime, everyone in the band is giving each other a quick kiss for luck, and then Dave Fanning is on stage, introducing their arrival.
They take to the stage like they were born to do it, which they probably were, running through a host of songs from their debut album, The Eye Of The Clock, which recently received a stonking 10 on the hotpress dice. I decide to move out front for the full effect.
Wow! Not only do they warm up like a team, but they are playing like a smooth-running machine. This is like watching Liverpool in their prime, all 10 band members knowing their role and playing it to perfection.
Darragh and Mick are the solid centre-halves, providing the foundation on which they perform. John and Andy are the central midfielders, full of fancy flicks, but also willing to track back and do the unpretty stuff for the sake of the team.
The string quartet take up the wide roles, supporting well and showing some deft touches in defense and attack, and are easily the hardest working string section I ve ever seen.
Josie plays in the hole in behind the striker, linking the play well, but it is Dara himself who grabs all the attention up front, showing for the ball at every opportunity and displaying a confident swagger in possession. For the budding soccer pundits among you wondering where the keeper is, Michael easily fulfils that roll, organising the defence from the side of stage.
By the time they get round to Damage the front man is on a hat-trick, Fade Away having already wowed the growing crowd. The Way is a real crowd-pleaser, and Dara have the audience eating out of their collective hand. A Name For Your Pain , although unfamiliar to many in the audience, gets a rapturous reception. In fact, their 40-minute set is paced just nicely so by the time they leave the stage, the sizeable crowd is baying for more.
Dara 3 Audience 0. A job well done.
We rehearse almost to the point of being insanely tight, Dara informs me later, so that when we go on stage, everyone can just let go.
And how much did it mean to play Slane?
It s the one gig you watch your whole life, when you grow up in Ireland, enthuses Dara. While it s not the biggest crowd we ve ever played to, it still felt like the most important and special gig we ve done. It s the gig you always dreamt of playing when you were a kid. Slane doesn t have that kind of carnival vibe you get at festivals in England. There is a real buzz to the whole day.

Backstage, Matt Bellamy & Co. are be-Mused onlookers as Team Dara take over the whole area in a flurry of hugs and beaming smiles, which lasts about 10 minutes, before we re off to the dressing room for the first (of many) celebratory beers of the day. I leave them to it for a while to enjoy the moment. By the time I rejoin them about 20 minutes later, they are calm again, casually sitting outside the dressing room in the brightening afternoon. Needless to say, everyone is in top form.
When their rider is finished, the table is full of empty beer cans. Someone suggests swapping signs with Muse s dressing room and dipping into their beer supplies but nobody takes them up on the offer. Eagle Eye Cherry and his crew wander out of their dressing room and sit around strumming a guitar. We wave. They reply. All very civil.
Henry Mountcharles arrives on the back of a quad bike, a broad grin on his face, dispensing congratulations and passes for the hospitality in the Castle. We decide to check it out. Little did I know at that point that I was just getting over the first of three hangovers in one 24-hour period.
The hospitality area proved to be the top floor of Slane Castle, where the beer was already freely flowing, the chatter was anything but idle and the company was exemplary. The rest of the day was spent in varying states of alcohol-induced euphoria, and I am afraid to admit that the rest of the music took something of a back seat.
Eagle Eye Cherry and Mel C both seemed decent enough; Macy started off well but, apparently, it all went a little flat in the middle; and Moby was his usual energetic self, bounding from one end of the vast stage to another like a particularly athletic greyhound. I m afraid by the time Bryan Adams took the stage, I wasn t exactly a prime witness, and I wasn t alone. Dara not only give it all on stage, they bloody well know how to party as well. The fireworks, though, deserve special mention, leaving over 60,000 people with big sloppy grins as they filed out of the famous venue.
The beer and conversation continued to flow until the wee hours of the morning. We re joined by friends and family, and the gathering turns into a party. About half an hour after the canny Cannuck leaves the stage, Henry Mountcharles appears, beaming from ear to ear, and soon proves he can shake his booty with the rest of us.
I realise I m absolutely trollied when I start demonstrating how all the best dance moves come from Mr Myagi in The Karate Kid wax on, wax off being a perfect accompaniment to Stevie Wonder s Superstitious . Almost the entire Dara crew have taken over the dancefloor and the music shows no signs of stopping. I can vaguely recall shuffling into a taxi headed for the relative serenity of Lord Henry s magnificent private residence, where we are to spend the night, sometime around 5am.
Next morning, the band are up surprisingly bright and early, and some of the lads are playing football on the lawn in front of the house. The mere thought of heading a ball has me sweating profusely so I collapse onto the grass, where I m soon feeling impaled by the beating sun.
Lord Henry strolls over and it s hugs all round before we troop back onto the Barney Bus for the drive home. Everyone is quiet, nursing hangovers in silent martyrdom. Even Bren manages to remain tight-lipped for the duration of the journey. I arrive back at Walshe Towers feeling somehow like I ve just spent the day at my best friend s wedding. I got a glimpse inside the workings of Team Dara, and realised that it s not all sex, drugs and rock n roll you gotta have strings too, y know.

Dara s debut album The Eye Of The Clock is out now on Epic Records.