THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR!

LIKE MOST things that happen in this country, there was drink involved. It was Heineken’s idea. Five bands, ten gigs and a catchy name – The Rollercoaster Tour Two wild and wacky weeks on the road with The Pale, The Revenants, The Harvest Ministers, Slack and one local act at each venue.
At the official launch in The Clarence Hotel last week, Heineken’s Marketing Director, Patrick Conway, said, “The idea came from the Lollapalooza tours in the States. Lollapalooza means all things strange and wonderful and while the tour will not be too strange we hope it will be wonderful.”
And was it?
What better place to find out than in Cork, (a city whose very name is an anagram of “Rock”). Welcome aboard, the ride is about to begin (in a manner of speaking) . . .
Wednesday 7.00pm: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BANG! That’s the sound of The Pale (complete with new drummer Paul McDonnell) doing a soundcheck. We’re in NiteOwls on Washington Street, an L-shaped discotheque with padded poles (I kid you not) dotted all over the dancefloor and pictures of shiny, happy (and definitely drunk) punters on the walls.
There’s only two and a half hours to go before the doors open so there’s a lot of work to be done in transforming the place from a rather bland and tacky club into a kick-ass rock’n’roll venue. People are scurrying around nailing Heineken banners and posters to the walls. The soundcrew are sharing a pizza as they try to work out the acoustics. Tour manager Dermot Flynn (who organised last year’s IMRO tour) is staring wistfully at the obstructive poles, probably wondering if the budget can cover a little redecoration. Probably not.
7.30pm: Soundcheck finished, The Pale’s Shane Wearan wanders over to me, wincing in agony as he massages his shoulder.
“Pulled a muscle,” he explains, rubbing it harder. “It’s been like this all day. I was doing this (the massaging) in a restaurant earlier. Yer woman must’ve thought I was an awful weirdo.” Still, he reckons that he’ll be alright to play later.
7.35pm: “It means what!?!” Snatch (from Mitchelstown) are tonight’s local band and, up to now, hadn’t realised that their name has an alternative meaning. “Jasus,” says guitarist Frank McCarthy with a wide grin, “it doesn’t mean that in Mitchelstown.”
8.00pm: I nip back upstairs to catch a snatch of Snatch’s soundcheck. They give me a tape called Shane’s T-shirt. Stupidly, I ask them what it’s like. “It’s great,” comes the (totally surprising) reply, “we call it attitude music.” The poles are still there but otherwise the venue looks okay now that it’s been draped in wall to wall Rollercoaster posters.
DAVE BUYS A PINT
8.30pm: Enter one Dave Fanning, MC for the tour. He buys me a pint. He’s good like that, is David. A couple of members of Snatch (Snatches?) come over. It transpires that their guitarist won his instrument a couple of years ago in a Dave Fanning Show/Hot Press competition. It’s a small world!
8.40pm: I nip into the Gents for a quick spliff and a line of speed. Come on, this is a rock’n’roll tour. And this is Cork after all!
8.45pm: Don Ryan of The Revenants: “So far we’ve been really delighted with the way Rollercoaster’s been promoted. The crowds have all been huge – UCD and Maynooth were both jam packed. You know for a band to go gigging around the country, they’re usually at the mercy of local promoters. But with this, everyone seems to be doing their jobs really well, the promotion so far has been great.”
9.00pm: The bouncers have arrived. They all carry walkie-talkies. Are these necessary? “Kudint doo witout dem bouy,” comes the surly reply, “not wit the fuckers around these days.” (I run my finger along the shiny blade of the knife in my . . . bad joke, forgive me). Can you pick up 2FM on them? (My humour is, once again, not appreciated).
9.30pm: The doors have opened and there’s now about a hundred people inside. Early days yet. Jim and Dermot are figuring on a crowd of about five or six hundred by eleven o’clock.
9.45pm: Just have time for a quick chat with Slack’s Ian Maloney. “It’s going really well,” he says in a friendly Wexford accent, “this is our first real tour and so far it’s been grand, everyone’s getting on really well.”
He also tells me that Slack got on this tour through the Hot Press Demo Parade sessions in Tower Records and that several record companies are keen to sign the band. He describes the band’s music as “a cross between manic and melodic.”
9.55pm: Has anyone seen any of The Harvest Ministers about?
10.00pm: The venue is starting to fill up and Dave Fanning goes on stage to introduce Snatch. He manages not to laugh.
Snatch take about three songs to get going but after ‘Girlfriend’ (dedicated to Sid Vicious) their set really takes off. There’s five in the band and they make a lot of noise. Think of a combination of Goth, grunge and punk and you’re somewhere near. They’re all guilty of shoegazing but the frontman throws himself around enough to make up for the rest. Music with balls but probably not enough brain. Give them another year (and perhaps a name change) and they may go somewhere.
10.30pm: Any sign of The Harvest Ministers yet anyone? No. What are they, shy?
10.35pm: Some guy from The Revenants comes over. “You’re with Hot Press?” he asks. Affirmative. “What’s your name?” I tell him (three times, same as always). “Never heard of ye.” Hey, like I said, some guy from The Revenants came over . . .
10.37pm: Slack . . . aren’t. They’re keen, clean and tighter than a Hot Press expense account. Dave Fanning reckons they sound like Suede but while the guitarist is vaguely Bernard-ish (in playing style, not looks – sorry Wexford, you’ve yet to score on that front), Ian sounds like Sting before he discovered rainforests i.e. in those glorious Police days.
In their best number, ‘I’m A Star’, he pleads with the audience “A movie star, a rock star, any kind of star” in true willbe style i.e. he will be a (rock) star with a bit of luck. On the Blink scale, Slack score a Blin.
DAVE BUYS ANOTHER PINT
11.00pm: Dave buys me another pint, God bless him. He also reckons he just saw one of The Harvest Ministers at the bar.
11.01pm: I can’t see them.
11.02pm: The pint was Heineken by the way. Did I mention that?
11.15pm: Finally, I catch sight of The Harvest Ministers. They’re up on the stage. A six-piece whose debut album was released about six months ago, they play a comparatively tranquil blend of folky rock. Actually, I find their set a bit of a downer at this stage of the night. Not that the music is bad, it just doesn’t quite gel with the more hard-edged approach of the other bands.
12.00am: I go backstage to finally talk to the HM’s. Frontman, William Merriman, has this to say: “ . . . great . . . working . . . second album . . . buncha . . . songs . . . Edgar Allen Poe . . . Baudelaire . . . genius . . . sad . . . brilliance . . .”
All of which is a clever way of saying that there was too much background noise on the tape (or my hand was shaking so much) to enable me to decipher it later. I do however, recall asking him how he saw the future and receiving this reply: “Well, the thing is . . . there is a future.” Cool answer. Peace.
12.20am: By the time The Revenants come on, the venue is as full as it’s gonna get (c. 650, all seem happy) which is a good thing because The Revenants are a band everyone should see. Frontman Stephen Ryan (ex Stars Of Heaven) has long been regarded by everyone except (it would seem) the record-buying public as one of the country’s finest bar stool bards. For evidence of this: give a listen to Horse Of A Different Colour, The Revenants’ superb debut.
12.30am: Buy Dave a pint back (just in case you thought I was mean). Unfortunately, it would appear that although Heineken are sponsoring the event, they’ve no control over the bar prices. £2 bloody 20 a pint!! The last venue to try charging that in Galway was burnt down the same night.
1.00am: The Revenants leave the stage, their job well done if the calls for an encore are anything to go by. ‘Marry Money; and ‘Let’s Get Falling Down’ in all their furious guitar glory are still ringing in my ears and playing in the stereo in my head all through the wait for The Pale to come on.
1.05am: ‘GETOUTTADAWHAYIMEGONNAPUKE!! (There’s always one isn’t there?).
1.05am: I get out of the way. I think he pukes as well but I try not to look.
1.10am: The Pale are the first band tonight to get a louder cheer than Dave Fanning. A large proportion of the crowd seem to have come here specifically for them.
1.20am: The Pale are playing a stormer. Shane Wearan seems to have recovered from his pulled muscle and Matthew’s in fine fettle. They seem much more like a full (real?) band now with the addition of a non-programmable drummer. Still quirky but with even more bite.
1.27am: ‘I Want To Steal Your Car’. They love it.
1.35am: ‘Butterfly’. They sing along.
1.40am: “Ventriloquist”. They lovingly sing along.
1.45am: ‘Has Anyone Seen My Willy?’ Matthew, you’ve let me down. I expected at least one John Wayne Bobbit joke.
1.50am: Show’s over. The roller has coasted yet again. Four down, six to go.
STAINED NAPKINS
2.20am: I’m standing outside a chip shop waiting for Dave Fanning who is being showered with stained request-bearing napkins by most of the people in there (and at least half the staff). Ha! The price of fame.
A girl comes over to me and asks am I with him. When I say yes, she tells me that she saw my band tonight and thought that we were the best one on. Being a gentlemen, I accept this praise rather than embarrass her. Yet when she asks, em, exactly which band was I in, I can’t resist. “We’re called Snatch.” She walks off in disgust . . .
2.45am: Meet up with Dermot Flynn back in the Grand Parade Hotel. He seems pretty happy with tonight’s gig(s). So he should be.
3.00am-ish: Dave Fanning on the Rollercoaster Tour: “It’s so difficult for a band to tour Ireland at the moment. In fact, it’s even difficult for five or six bands to tour Ireland at the moment. And so, if anybody, and I don’t care who it is, wants to put money into it and sponsor it then . . . well, I’m into anyone like that. So Heineken are putting in the money – cool by me. It means that five bands can go round the country and play regularly for ten full dates – do a full tour in other words. That’s brilliant.
What do you think of the line-up personally?
“Well, I’ll put it to you like this. The lighting guy was telling me that he thought The Harvest Ministers were the best band on the tour. I think that they don’t necessary fit on the tour in one way and yet, in another way, they bring the whole thing down. Because the local band is always heavy – a new band is always loud and heavy. Take Slack from Wexford. They’re getting much better. I saw them in Dublin on the first night and even tonight, four gigs in, they’ve gotten much better.
“And then once The Revenants come on . . . they’re the best band as far as I’m concerned. The Revenants have the same sort of resonance as The Blades or something. They just remind me of The Blades in terms of something really brilliant that I don’t think will ever make it in the real world at all . . .
4.00am-ish: “ . . . except for the poles tonight it worked fine. Five quid for five bands. You can’t beat that.” Dave makes his excuses (he has to write The Movie Show in the morning) and retires.
4.30am-ish: I go to bed. Think of retiring. Dream on.
Thursday 9.00am (exactly): The phone rings. It’s reception. “Good morning sir. This is the nine o’clock call you asked for.”
“I ASKED TO BE CALLED AT NINE O’CLOCK AT NIGHT DAMMIT!!!” I scream before flinging the phone out the window. Rock ’n’ roll.
• The Heineken Rollercoaster Tour continues tonight in Horans of Tralee and ends tomorrow night in the National Student Centre, Aston Quay).