Copenhagen

I met up with Cora Venus Lunny the day before the show and we ran through my songs. It quickly became apparent to me that having her play the music written would be a waste of her ridiculous talent. So i asked her just to play what and when she felt.

We hit the air the next day to Copenhagen on SAS airlines and were treated like kings, we were both in shock as we are used to flying Ryanair which has the same feel as lambs on board a truck on the way to a slaughter house. We rocked up at the venue which was the main Library. We were to play as some part of an Irish literary festival and there was a lecture in Danish about modern Irish Rock music. I still had the feeling that 1/3 the people there were expecting trad music (this is why i never play Irish Pubs or any venue with the word Irish in it).Still i was excited to play as it is always amazing playing for the first time with a new musician.

I got to meet some people i had known from Myspace and also the good people from Play Rec which was nice.

I had arranged that Cora would play a short set before me of her own music.
She hit the stage and destroyed the place, playing for the first time with a looping pedal she had borrowed. I was honestly beaming from ear to ear as i listened. There was that lovely feeling of shock in the air. Just as i thought it couldn’t get any better she sang (for the first time on stage). the song was called “Willow” and it was just perfect, the lyrics , melody, tone. Perfection.

As Cora finished i wandered onstage and was still kind of in shock. I don’t really remember much apart from fucking up a guitar part on one of the new songs. There was no set list and I was really concentrating on what Cora was playing. Really enjoyable.

We finished by improvising two songs at the end. I sampled a few verses of one bedroom apartment in the last one and extended it, man that felt good. Improvising music live on stage is one of the biggest highs there is.

I hope we get a chance to play some more and document it in a recording. I’m on the case.

The next morning i thought to myself how lucky I have been in all these years travelling the world and getting to share stages with such amazing people and musicians. Well it’s too late to stop now.

*Funniest moment on tour, looking for a mac shop to buy some software i needed and getting sent to a M-A-C shop. Female readers who wear make up will find that funny. Still the mascara is deadly.