Beatles
Back from Ireland
09/06/08 11:08
Yesterday I got back from doing 3 nights in Northern Ireland with the Cavern Beatles. First we had to catch a 3am ferry from Fleetwood which at the time seemed like an odd time but with having a cabin and an 8 hour journey we slept most the way.
The first gig was in Riverside Theatre, Coleraine which was a nice intimate venue and a good gig. Halfway through setting up some of us decided to take a short trip to Giant’s Causway which is odd when you’re there. Sometimes nature can do things which make you question whether it’s happened by coincidence or been put there.
Although there were moments when it looks like a Marshalls exhibition!
So, with a drummer scaling wet rocks, in the rain, with smooth soled leather boots on, all before we’ve performed one gig we decided maybe we should head back and get down to business.
Accomodation wasn’t sorted until after we arrived in Coleraine and we were given a local B&B to stay in. It felt like we were staying in a friends grandmothers house, especially when you walk through their living room, past the birthday cards to get to the dining room.
After breakfast we headed on down to the Island Arts Centre, Lisburn.
Now that's a place with a great stage delivery entrance, you can practically park your van on the stage! Really nice bunch of people, they're currently in the middle of upgrading their system, new lighting rig, new audio rig including an M7CL.
Nice, new theatre but acoustically crap! Not helped by the even crapier mix position.
Finally we moved on to Braid Arts Centre, Ballymena. Great new and old building conjoined unfortunately this meant compromises were made in design with regards to access. There was a load in bay, but.... we had to move all the equipment on and off 3 separate lifts! The bad design came from the fact that 2 of those lifts were only moving the equipment no more than 4 feet!! Please excuse the exclamations but it's just really bad design.
The actual theatre sounded great, it was nice to hear a reverb tail rather than a slap back delay. However due to there not being a full time technician no one knew where the stage power was so we had to use multiple 13 amp sockets which wasn't ideal (we did try some 16 amp sockets but after we found the lighting guy was able to turn our amps on using his dimmers we quickly disconnected the power).
One nice side story of our visit was blowing people away with my iPhone. Not knowing where we were and looking for sustenance after the 2nd gig I was able to direct us to a Tesco’s just as we were about to give up. The day after at the Braid, Roy (Ringo) was telling me about a clip of him on YouTube which within seconds I had playing on the iPhone (and here is the reaction).
So after the last gig it was finally time for a relax and a bit of a drink, when in Ireland there is only one official drink allowed.
One last thing worth mentioning was the food given both in and out bound on the ferry.
Next, Hope Street Festival.
The first gig was in Riverside Theatre, Coleraine which was a nice intimate venue and a good gig. Halfway through setting up some of us decided to take a short trip to Giant’s Causway which is odd when you’re there. Sometimes nature can do things which make you question whether it’s happened by coincidence or been put there.
Although there were moments when it looks like a Marshalls exhibition!
So, with a drummer scaling wet rocks, in the rain, with smooth soled leather boots on, all before we’ve performed one gig we decided maybe we should head back and get down to business.
Accomodation wasn’t sorted until after we arrived in Coleraine and we were given a local B&B to stay in. It felt like we were staying in a friends grandmothers house, especially when you walk through their living room, past the birthday cards to get to the dining room.
After breakfast we headed on down to the Island Arts Centre, Lisburn.
Now that's a place with a great stage delivery entrance, you can practically park your van on the stage! Really nice bunch of people, they're currently in the middle of upgrading their system, new lighting rig, new audio rig including an M7CL.
Nice, new theatre but acoustically crap! Not helped by the even crapier mix position.
Finally we moved on to Braid Arts Centre, Ballymena. Great new and old building conjoined unfortunately this meant compromises were made in design with regards to access. There was a load in bay, but.... we had to move all the equipment on and off 3 separate lifts! The bad design came from the fact that 2 of those lifts were only moving the equipment no more than 4 feet!! Please excuse the exclamations but it's just really bad design.
The actual theatre sounded great, it was nice to hear a reverb tail rather than a slap back delay. However due to there not being a full time technician no one knew where the stage power was so we had to use multiple 13 amp sockets which wasn't ideal (we did try some 16 amp sockets but after we found the lighting guy was able to turn our amps on using his dimmers we quickly disconnected the power).
One nice side story of our visit was blowing people away with my iPhone. Not knowing where we were and looking for sustenance after the 2nd gig I was able to direct us to a Tesco’s just as we were about to give up. The day after at the Braid, Roy (Ringo) was telling me about a clip of him on YouTube which within seconds I had playing on the iPhone (and here is the reaction).
So after the last gig it was finally time for a relax and a bit of a drink, when in Ireland there is only one official drink allowed.
One last thing worth mentioning was the food given both in and out bound on the ferry.
Next, Hope Street Festival.
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