David Keenan's Tour Diary Part 3: Phil Grimes, Waterford

And on the third day he wised up again...

Waterford, a proud place on the waterfront, home of the mystical blaa and Phil Grimes pub where a welcome was waiting by the fire, open armed and smiling.
The men behind Subterranean Sounds reached out and facilitated last nights happening. Phad and Gar, two salt of the earth soldiers on the front lines trying to maintain a night of credible artistry and expression upstairs in “The Other Room” a place dripping with character that is sought by the many but the like just cannot be bought, it’s legit, if the walls could talk they’d whistle.
Patterned red carpet lines the floor, a little green wooden bar, an old piano hiding in the corner of the small stage, old yellowed lighting hanging from the ceiling, no seating, intimacy.
I was in my element !
Let us call all the bards in !

I was joined in the affray by young Tadhg Williams, a man with many artistic pots on the boil. He read aloud some of his spoken word pieces before I took to the stage and one poem in particular that compared the relationship with travelers during his grandmothers time with present day struck a chord.
However I had to disagree with him all of a sudden for he read the line: “Expressionism is dead and gone, it’s with Yeats in the grave” Blasphemy!!!
It lives on, coursing through our spirits and through our veins, it walks beside us and dances on our tongues for as long as we keep the beacons burning it will guide us in the dark!
My love to Tadhg, he is a man on the path, walk on brother.

Waterford you were beautiful, you were beyond welcoming, Phil Grimes you are my new shelter from the rains, a fella may indeed find love in that Snug !

I had a hankering to venture into the Wander inn but for fear of not wandering out I decided against it, perhaps next time.
I’m making my way towards home, well almost.
Drogheda calls X