They Came, They Saw, They Steamed…

Friday, 5th June

It was appropriate in many ways that our US tour would kick off in the Scout Hall in Tuam. Here in 1980, Blaze X, Tuam’s finest ever, blasted the place apart, short and simple, punky and poppy, and sowed the seeds for the Saw Doctors, with the likes of the original ‘I Used To Love Her’ and Padraig Stevens’ ‘Summergirl’. Tonight, Padraig opens the show with the sun still shining through the windows. Mighty.

Saturday, 6th June

Up early. Down to Shannon. Gulp the last real pint in a while. Sleeper bus collects us at JFK. Glenn the driver is from Nashville. His father is Charlie Louvin, who, with his brother Ira, formed probably the greatest country harmony act ever, the Louvin Brothers. Glenn turns out to be an extremely funny gentleman with his quick wit and southern attitude. The satellite dish works for the first half hour, then breaks down. Noel, our tour manager cum merchandiser, has promised Davy for months that this would not happen, and Davy vows to take Noel’s life if it doesn’t get fixed. A World Cup crisis looms.

Sunday, 7th June

Day off in Portland, Maine. Hot. Out with the hurleys in the hotel car park for a bit of exercise. Mike the promoter brings us out to Cliff Island for the night. On the second run, the boat breaks down; on board, unfortunately, are the people who’ve been in the bar the longest. Niall, our stage manager, finally gets ashore and goes a bit ballistic on the golf cart from the pier. It’s OK. He’s getting married on 4th July, so this is going to be his stag month, without any of the degrading rituals.

Monday, 8th June

Our fourth gig in Raoul’s in Portland in the last fifteen months. We’re like foreign regulars here now.

Tuesday, 9th June

Wake up in Providence, the one in Rhode Island. Great venue, Lupo’s. Stanley Matis is the support tonight. We’ve come across his ‘Dead Guy’ song before: “The dead guy’s feelings don’t get hurt when you tell him that he stinks/He’s lousy with women and when we go swimming, the dead guy always sinks.” He says from the stage, “I’m only going to play for half an hour ’cos you couldn’t take an hour of this shit.”

Wednesday, 10th June

We’re in New Haven on a day off and Glenn is on the roof of the bus sorting through 27 different coloured wires. Success! Now we’ve got the soccer for the next few weeks. Davy relaxes. Brazil beat Scotland.

Thursday, 11th June

Toad’s in New Haven is a classic American rock club. The signed photos on the walls are of the Stones and Springsteen and U2 and Dylan and Jonathan Richman and countless other class acts.

Friday, 12th June

New York City! Day off. Up late and down to the Thali restaurant on Greenwich Avenue, where they don’t give you a menu, just a deliciously simple vegetarian Indian meal of the day. Then, up the avenue to Fiddlestix, a vibrant new-style Irish bar where the launch was held in November for the Harp radio ad, with our song in it. We’re among friends and Davy ends up singing a few songs to the happily rowdy crowd.

Saturday, 13th June

Fleadh Day. Standing at the hotel on 42nd Street, waiting for Glenn to pick us up and this is rain like you’ve never seen before. The street is a river. When we get to the site, some vehicles are in it up to the top of the tyres. 15 minutes more rain and the cops would have pulled the gig. We fear a wash-out. But no. By 2pm, there’s plenty of people and the sun is making its presence felt. Billy Bragg introduces me to Woody Guthrie’s grandson, Cole. I’m excited. We play at about five, and get on famously. Very satisfying. We’re staying on site tonight and the hurleys come out and there’s a bit of a puck around with a few New York cops on the floodlit, rubbish-strewn field.

Sunday, 14th June

It’s too early, and we’re too tired to go looking for a bar that’s showing the Galway/Leitrim game. We’re onstage at the same time again today and again it rains in the morning then clears up. We play another very satisfying set. Feels like we’re making loads of friends to judge by the amount of e-mails we get. Pat and Jon of d’Unbelievables are here, God bless us. It’s into town. We leave Fiddlestix at dawn and have breakfast in a middlin’ diner. The taxi ride out to the bus, along the East river, with the sun rising over Brooklyn is very special, very beautiful.

Monday, 15th June

Day off in NYC and we meet Pat and Jon for a laugh and a drink in Fiddlestix in the afternoon, and Germany beat the US and there’s three young Sligo women on a day off from their summer jobs on Long Island, and we end up going down to the ‘Bar With No Name’ for an Irish music showcase do, and there’s a re-union of the Wild Turkeys from Donegal with our Derek on guitar and Kevin and Aidan, resident New Yorker and Pearse is playing a snare drum and the Saw Doctors get invited to sing a few songs, joined by Jackie Kealy, Tuam emigrant and ex-Marvelette, and I sing ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’ in honour of meeting Cole. Bus leaves 2am.

Tuesday, 16th June

We’re on the coast of Connecticut and Paula, our good friend, has organised a schooner, built in 1929, to take us for a couple of hours out on the water. It’s very pleasurable and very hot. Pearse is lashing on the factor 50 and Johnny and Paula perform the Titanic scene way out on the bow. Back to land and Brazil beat Morocco. The gig tonight is a party for Paula in another classic American rock club. Good steam.

Wednesday, 17th June

Me and Pearse get up early to do the radio interview. It’s the biggest station, we’re told, and it could be true. It’s a shock-jock scenario, where Weese and his two cohorts do a sex quiz, insult callers, tell the foxy waitress in the diner downtown that one of the blokes at the station is gong to be “making a move” on her tomorrow, and generally intermingle me and Pearse in the proceedings while the male panellist displays porno mags to the woman beside him. There’s an “interview” with Weese’s “about-to-be-born-at-any-minute” child from the womb and he loves Clare Island and plays it three times. Tonight we play in Rochester but none of the audience seems to have heard the radio show. Good gig though.

Thursday, 18th June

We’re in Buffalo to support Squeeze on a green square in the heart of the city, with a backdrop of skyscrapers and trams. Davy finds a toy shop and picks up the pressies. It’s a free gig and 95% of the audience are just drifting out of work and don’t know who we are. We like this and play well. By the time we finish a great crowd has gathered and when Squeeze start up there’s a serious amount of people. Last thing I remember is having a margarita with Derek in a room full of spinning pool tables.

Friday, 19th June

A day off in Chicago but we’re meeting with Kurt and Chris – two lads we know from the Metro Club where we sold out in March – to go and do a few photos for a Sunday World article. It takes an hour and a half in serious heat to get from the hotel to the city centre. Chris and Kurt are vibrant though and we get some decent shots. It’s sushi for dinner and a couple of hours waiting for developments. Davy and Noel sink a cold one while Johnny, Derek, Pearse and myself take a stroll around a movie-esque park with little leagues, baseball, Mexicans playing soccer, tennis, horseshoe throwing and ice-cream selling all happening on a warm summer’s evening beneath an O’Hare airport flight path. Back at the hotel bar and Paul Brady has a drink with us while he’s waiting for his pizza to arrive.

Saturday, 20th June

So this is where the Arlington Racecourse is! Back in 1983 I hadn’t a clue when John Purcell asked me, as a J1 temporary US resident to go to an OTB office and back Teleprompter for him in the Arlington Million. Led all the way. 14/1. I had a few dollars on, myself. Anyway, stepping off the bus at the racecourse site is like stepping into an oven. We meet up with Mary Black’s gang again and they’re all in great form. We’ve got the hurleys out for a bit of exercise – Pat, Mary’s keyboard player, tells me he won a Cork minor medal and then the bloke in the Chieftains who looks like an actor from Fair City grabs a hurley and wallops a tennis ball out over the fence into the audience. A couple of the lads from Rubyhorse, the Boston-based Corkonians, borrow the Camans for a puck around on the track. Johnny and Pearse are chatting with the girls from the Corrs and Kurt remarks in his Woody Allen style voice. “It’s painful to stare at those girls . . . but in a nice way”. We close the show on the main stage after Sinéad O’Connor. It’s not the easiest of gigs. People are tired after being in the sun all day, and the public transport is shutting down, but we play fairly well to a good few thousand people.

Sunday, 21st June

Day off in Chicago. Tom Kenny, our sometimes lighting man, who usually works in the big league with Clapton and Plant and Page and the likes, and his fiancee Lori, take us to their local for pool and beer. They live in a real vibrant neighbourhood and after a mighty evening’s steam, we head over to the Metro, watch a rocking band called Eve 6, meet up with Chris and Kurt and it blurs into a haze of divilment.

Monday, 22nd June

Minneapolis. Sore head. Johnny’s found the swimming pool at the hotel, as always. Tonight we’re in First Avenue, once owned by Prince. Derek, Johnny and I go for a couple of miles walk down along the banks of the Mississippi where we see acrobatic water skiers and, of course, a classic riverboat. The sound on stage at the gig is immaculate and the gig is good too.

Tuesday, 23rd June

Kansas City. The Hurricane. Brazil and Norway are on the big screen. There’s a student here in the afternoon and he’s come from Oklahoma, and two women have flown from Nashville specially. It’s a strange world. We eat in the Jerusalem Cafe, fabulous vegetarian food, and the gig is loud, hot and sweaty. More road . . .

Wednesday, 24th June

We arrive in Denver in very many degrees of heat and pop across the road to Tommy’s Thai for exquisite panang yellow curry. Glenn’s dad has sent on Glenn’s own 8 CD box set of everything the Louvin Brothers have ever recorded . . . for me! Magic. What a gift. John and myself hit off down the park for a few belts of the sliotar. Surely we’re getting a tan. The Bluebird is a brilliant theatre and we like it here. Derek has been out walking and enjoying a gospel service and he arrives at the front door just as we take the stage. No panic.

Thursday, 25th June

The tour bus is a strange place in the middle of the night. We’re on a stop-off at St. George, somewhere in the Rockies. It’s Pearse’s birthday. There’s discount stores and a Red Lobster restaurant. John gets a neat Native American style mirror for his bathroom. We find a bar called the Blarney Stone. The bar woman is friendly, but the demeanour of the clientele suggests they are all into shooting at various targets with the large selection of rifles and shotguns that are for sale in the local sports shop.

Friday, 26th June

San Juan Capistrano and we thought we were playing at the beach but it’s a (worthwhile) mile and a half walk. Derek manages to swim in the Pacific but the undertow is too much for me and Pearse. Another venue with signed pictures of the greats on its walls. We’ll be back.

Saturday, 27th June

We hate the thought of leaving the bus, missing Brazil vs. Chile, and flying to Portland Oregon, but off we go of course. We’re standing outside arrivals with loads of big flight cases and Bill, a Siberian van/taxi driver, becomes our ally. The festival site is beside an old amusement park, and there aren’t too many tickets sold, but the steam is top-class with the Mary Black gang and Altan. The gig turns out to be a classic and we end up in the snug of Biddy McGraws, enjoying her copious hospitality. Derek and Pearse go off to two different raves.

Sunday, 28th June

Fly back down to San Jose for the final Fleadh. Hectic but worth it. Nanci Griffith says hello to Davy. This evening we’re playing on the second stage in a big tent and the energy in the crowd is magic. We’ve just brought our songs from the West of Ireland to the US for the tenth time, eighteen years after Blaze X played the Scout Hall. Not bad. Then there’s Niall and Anne’s wedding on Saturday...