North American (and Russian!) Tour Diary

[delorentos]

The day we won the Choice Prize and other stories.
Thursday 7th March - Dublin

I don't really remember too much about Thursday morning, i know i wasn't too nervous about the Meteor Choice event that was on that evening; partially because i knew we wouldn't win, and partially because the next morning at 5am we had to get up and go to the airport to begin our North American tour.

I texted a few friends about tickets for the night, packed my bag for the US and headed off to the venue for the soundcheck at 2pm. We ran through the songs a few times and acquainted ourselves with the times and details, and then each of us disappeared off home for an hour or two to get ready. Its weird to pack for (almost) 3 weeks - cold weather clothes for new york, Toronto and Moscow, summer clothes for Austin and Memphis - Its also weird for us in relationships, saying goodbye for 3 weeks is always a pain in the arse, but y'know, we'll be having adventures while they stay at home; they'll miss us while *we* are high-fiving strippers and throwing flat screens out of windows and stuff.

Anyway, we headed back to the venue, and my nerves began a little. At first it was just a little pang, but as the time to go onstage came it became a full colony of butterflies. I guess because it means something to us to be recognized - you tell people that music is its own reward - but really it's important to get a little recognition, just to keep your spirits up. I watched all the other acts, while dipping in and out of the backstage where we chatted with the others, all friendly and unpretentious, and very supportive of each other. Mumblin Deaf Ro is a good friend of mine, and we'd gone through the pre-nomination nerves, the announcement and the preparation together, both hoping the other would win if they didn't themselves.

After a lovely Paul Mcloone introduction we went out and played our two songs, Bullet in a gun and Little Sparks, and left to a lovely warm response and thought that that was that. Backstage me and Nial talked about how they could probably just announce a ten album shortlist and not have a winner. "You won't be saying that when you win!" said Steve from Windings. L.O.L. we said, hilariously, yeah right. When the time for the announcement came, a ripple of a rumor went through the nominees, huddled on the stairs, who the winner was, and it wasn't us. I shrugged and said oh well, and then, the words sprung back from the stage "their third album…. Little Sparks…." and the night went mental. We gave a shocked and unprepared acceptance speech. Keep it simple. I accidentally said "holy shitballs' live on the radio. Our phones went crazy, texts, calls, tweets, mails… and then we went down to the bar, not believing it and not turning down a drink.

Sometimes the craziest things happen, and we were blown away by the reaction, the positivity and just, well, the love! I hope we've thanked everyone that has helped us get to this point, because we couldn't have done without them. Holy Shitballs indeed.

Kieran

Friday 8th March - New York

What a night, not only did we win the Choice for best album, but Damien Dempsey offered to give me free sparring lessons in his local boxing club.

Neither of these punctuations had sunk in as I awoke from my one hour of slumber, plonked under the shower and got my phone out to call a cab to the airport (not at the same time).

The reason I've included the last boring detail is that I downloaded this app called Hailo for ordering cabs. It's proper slick, but the best bit is there's a little cartoon graphic of you sitting in your taxi as it takes you along your route. Quite funny, but you can also see if you're "being taken for a ride" so to speak. Anyway I should offer to be their ambassador, but needless to say I made it to the airport for the scheduled Delo -assebly of 6am.

We had our visas sorted and yet, any time you come into contact with US immigration is a nervy experience. When I told him what I did for a living, the officer asked me was I going to be the next Bono, going around saving the world with other peoples money. "No sir" I said, I'm "Ro from Delorentos and happy enough with that for the time being" while nodding/saluting. He seemed happy enough with that as well and with everyone having a relatively stress-free transition to the plane, we were on our way to New York.

As we approached Laguardia airport I could see the ground was covered in snow and the blizzard intensified as we touched down. Our disorientation from the awards night compounded by the long flight, we hauled ourselves and our guitars from bus, to underground and eventually got to our hotel, by which time the snow had miraculously nearly all melted.
(I have to mention the sounds to be found on the subway. On nearly every carriage we were joined by some sort of musician, or singer, performing for change, and the standard, particularly of the vocal harmony groups was unreal. It's tough to think there's not the work out there in clubs and venues for these musicians, but I could be naive, maybe the punters on the subway pay better than the promoters!)

We're lucky to have made some really good friends in New York. Myself, Níal and Kieran headed to Brooklyn to meet one such pal and even though we were knackered by this stage, we couldn't resist one drink in a local bar to reacquaint ourselves with the place. (later Fred Thomas, James Brown's Bass player did a show in the bar!) We listened to some bands and chatted to some cool people about the music scenes on our respective sides of the Atlantic. I also discovered that rents in New York are double or triple that of Dublin. Scary stuff, but I slept like a log nonetheless.

Ro.

instagram.com/delorentos - for photos!

[delorentos]

Saturday 9th March
Craicfest 2013, Mercury Lounge, New York.

We woke up in Brooklyn and headed down to our favorite local diner, the Purity Kitchen. Everytime we've been in New York gigging, or staying with friends we've headed down there. As well as amazingly huge american breakfasts they generally fill us full of coffee, and since we were still pretty hungover and jet lagged we were pretty happy with this. After giant plates of eggs and bacon and homestyle fries and everything else we pretended to read the paper as we drifted into food comas until we had to head back to get the gear. The rest of the lads, Dan our manager, Adrian our soundman and Ross had been out the night before so the hotel room was "stuffy". I have chosen to use the word "stuffy" in this instance to protect the guilty... After a few showers we headed to Times Square to an Irish bar where Adrian's cousin tends bar. Every giant tv in New York seemed to be attached to every single pit of wall, roof and floor space; flashing and screaming for our attention. I expected our food to be delivered on iPads showing college basketball. After the 6 dinners-worth of breakfast we had earlier i wasn't hungry, however i knew i wouldn't eat again til after the gig. So i got a simple chicken wrap, but when it finally arrived it was the size of my head. we're going to have to be careful of the portion sizes over here or we'll be 20 stone food bags having heart attacks on stage by the time we get to SouthBySouthWest.
At 5 we packed up our stuff and met a sound local photographer who wanted to do a photoblog of the day, and the 7 of us headed to the Mercury lounge, SoHo. Tonight we're playing "Craicfest" a fun expat-magnet festival that features Irish acts around St Patricks Day. After a nightmare soundcheck (our power connectors all failed, rendering our pedals and tracks unusable and causing us to rethink our whole sound set-up) we finally got ourselves sorted and set up for the gig. In my haste after the Choice i forgot loads of stuff due to simply not packing properly, so i had to visit the drugstore down the street for ear protectors before the gig. Standing in line with guys who obviously have very serious problems and illnesses was a reality check that put the relatively minor problem of the pedals into perspective.
The gig went great, and we got a great reaction that we weren't expecting from a friendly and happy crowd. Afterwards we met old friends and eventually went to various parties. Tonight almost all of us piled into the hotel room, increasing the "stuffiness" level to "uninhabitable".

Kieran

[delorentos]

Sunday 10 March
NYC Day

Saturday night was a late one. After leaving The Mercury Lounge, a good friend who's been living in New York for several years took me on a little crawl around the east village. By the time we'd hit the last bar, a deadly grungy little place called 7B, I was almost on hand and knee. Shot measures in New York seem not to be measured. We finished the evening, by climbing to the roof garden atop the apartment block, where I was greeted by an stunning 360degree view of New York!

I woke up a little shell shocked, I think still suffering some after-effects of the awesome views of the previous evening I'd spotted the nearly constructed Freedom tower in the distance and decided that as I'd brought my "sneakers" it would be the perfect time to head out and see it up close. As my lethargy subsided, it was actually really nice stumbling around the city on a Sunday morning. Dublin's obviously radically more multi cultural than it was ten years ago, but it's still light years behind NY, where every nationality seems to be represented in a really vibrant way. It was a bright sunny morning and loads of people were walking dogs, sipping coffees and checking out all the cool little markets and shops that occupy the village.

I ran through the hustle and bustle that is China town, stopping in a Chinese bakery to grab a wee pastry, but no sooner had i taken off again, but the landscape changed . I passed the Brooklyn Bridge and the grand old court houses and the sky scrapers got ever taller, as i eventually reached the financial district and the Freedom Tower. I can tell you it will be majestic.

After a delicious brunch with some friends old and new (during which i got a text saying that the lads saw Zooey Deschanel while they got fancy coffees) I just about made it in time to meet the guys and catch a cab to the airport and our flight to Austin. With a transfer at Houston on the way, it was a long afternoon and evening of traveling. When we finally arrived in Austin however, we were met by the smiling faces and friendly welcome of our hosts for the week Veronica and Kelly.

We were pretty exhausted, but couldn't turn down the offer of a visit to their local bar known as "The Shed". We sampled some local brew and played a little pool before they kicked us out.
It was great to be back in Austin, to know that we were staying with cool people and i was excited about the week ahead.

Ro.

[delorentos]

Monday 11th March
Austin / SXSW
The story so far..

Just to re-cap from my perspective.... We got over the shock of winning the Choice music prize by drinking a lot. In my case I mixed drinking a lot with staying up all night and going straight to the airport (great idea, by the way. I would highly recommend it). The biggest achievement in the band's history was followed by the longest wait at U.S immigration in the band's history, most amount of time at a boarding gate in the band's history and finally the most amount of time asleep on a plane with our mouth's wide open (in the bands history). So personally speaking I arrived in New York with a raspy voice, saying things like ' downtown', "I'm walking here" and " are you talkin to me?" (fitting in already). To cut a long story short we went with some friends to bar in Brooklyn, saw some music, met a Dutch girl that works for the UN that takes guns away from people, who was very tall and perfectly capable of taking guns from us if she wished (we didn't have any, if anyone from Homemade Security is reading this).

The next morning we went to visit 'DeathFace'. For those of you that don't know, DeathFace is a legendary diner waiter in Brooklyn, that looks (and, frankly acts) like a cross between Skeletor and Dracula. I say legendary, but nobody else in Brooklyn knows this guy. For us, he's a legend. In addition to being a bit scary, he's also very polite. However, he knows your order before you've finished saying anything, and may be able to see directly into your soul. We came so obsessed with DeathFace that last time, we got a photo with him. BUT THERE WAS A BLANK SPACE IN THE PHOTO WHERE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN! Actually, I think we just lost the photo. Aaaaaanyway, we explained all of this to our friend Shayna and asked if she wanted to come with us, but she politely declined (they're very polite over here). So we set off, excited to see DeathFace. On our two previous visits, he was there. And in a way, he's ALWAYS there.

He wasn't there. he doesn't works on sundays.

The rest of our visit to New York passed in a blur, we played a great gig, thanks to the big crowd that came to see us and hung out with our friends Amanda and Flor (they directed a video for 'editorial' and the lads from Kodeline (fellow northsiders, always good to see in New York!). We ended up in our friend Sammy's bar 'Solas' -he was one of the volunteers we worked with in Haiti, it's really cool to arrive in a foreign city and be treated by friendly faces.
So, onto Monday.

The day started in Kelly and Veronica's place, having spent the night before in a red barn drinking beer and throwing horseshoes around the place. We had black coffee, pancakes and bacon courtesy of Kelly and hit the road. At this stage of sxsw, Austin is a mixture of the interactive and music delegates. For me it's the most interesting part of the week as some of the tech panels feature apps and websites launching at Sxsw that will become huge in the coming year. So after registration, we set about familiarising ourselves with what is on show. We met up with the Lost Brothers as we waited to do a live BBC interview and session on 6th street, with the worlds music and tech industry milling about behind us.

After Registration and tech panels, we went to the artists lounge and sat on the grass chatting to people from Germany, the US, Spain and Mexico. We had Dinner with Leagues O'Toole in an awesome bbq shack, and ate the most amount of meat ever experienced by a human. Lots of people have heard about the choice prize and being on the cover of the Irish times, and are enthusiastic about it. It's a really nice feeling having worked on Little Sparks, the pop up shops, magazine and acoustic shows for a year and a half.

We finished up the night watching Comedy at the IFC house after taking in sixth street... Sxsw is shaping up to be awesome!

Níal

P.s special mention to Ken Grand-Pierre (awesome name), a fantastic photographer and blogger (and superfan of Irish bands) that we hung out with in NY, you can check out his blog here: kenami.tumblr.com/

[delorentos]

Tuesday 12th
Austin / SXSW

We all woke up with serious colds from the air-con today, we're not used to it and it's playing havoc with our sinuses. After the usual morning routines of multivitamins, showers, and skype's we headed up the road to the strip malls where everyone we met wanted to take a photo with our accents and tell us about how their great grandmothers neighbor once knew an Irish person. "Oh my god! i'd love to go!" they all say. Well, y'know, its not too expensive. I hope you like rain and alcohol! anyway after a big shop we made eggs for all (sunny side up) and grabbed the bus into town. Google maps works amazing in the states, and one added bit is the public transport part which tells you where the next bus is and where to take it from. So, at around 11 we walked 6 mins to the bus and got the number Ten bus for 28 minutes into town. Its great when things work!

At midday, first stop as ever is the convention centre. Nial is really into the panels and lectures, so he has already been in watching lectures and taking notes as per his schedule for a few hours now. In the exhibition hall there are hundreds of Apps and websites still on show (the interactive element of the festival ends today) and its amazing to see the ideas and the inventions. One app will send a songwriter degrading and humiliating messages about how they are wasting their life until they finally get out of bed and sit at the guitar. With another you can point your smartphone at someone and it will tell you a list of all the embarrassing music they don't admit to liking. There's even links to buy the songs included! So impressive.

At 2pm we headed up and did a few quick interviews and a song on a guitar borrowed from a punk busker lady, then headed back to the Convention centre.I missed Nick Cave talking earlier in the day so i headed to a panel on activism only to arrive late. i queued for a while, got bored, and then headed to another panel about spottily that i also arrived too late for. Eventually i gave up and headed to the registrants lounge and drank free beer for a while.
At five the other lads were finished watching panels and so we headed to watch some music. First stop was the GermanHaus on Rainer st. As well as all the official showcases, there are lots of unofficial showcases in various private venues around the inner city, and some of the coolest are on Rainer St, five minutes walk from the convention centre. The street itself has lots of very old style southern houses, each converted into a bar or venue and each sponsored by a website, an equipment manufacturer or even a national cultural centre. The GermanHaus is one of these, and when we arrived there was free beer and burgers and a deadly band playing. We hung around for a while, bumped into some German musicians and stole wifi in the sunshine.

The evening was spent wandering around venues, various beers until we settled on the balcony of a hotel overlooking Congress and 7th with a random assortment of Irish people, some leaving and some just arrived. As we sat on the balcony eating popcorn and drinking sierra nevada while sneezing our faces off, underneath us throngs of people milled about heading to gigs and showcases and parties… its scary and exciting to realize that we are a tiny part of this massive massive event.

Kieran

[delorentos]

Wednesday 13th March
Maggie Mae's, our first show, SXSW

Today was a busy one. We were up early again checking out the panels and meeting music industry folk. Every topic under the sun is discussed, from latest trends in social networking, to finding ways not to kill your fellow band members as your career flourishes. Lots of people are looking for the secret to success and fortunately everyone agrees that while there are many exotic and beneficial ways of promoting your talent, good songs and great shows are the key.

Our slot at Maggie Mae's wasn't until midnight and so we'd plenty of time to stroll along 6th street and check out some bands. One of the original Coyote Ugly bars, on which the film is based, is also on 6th and we thought it rude not to pay our respects. Compared to the throngs of people packing into most other bars and venues, Coyote was quite sparsely populated. That didn't stop the girls line-dancing atop the bar having an amazing time, but the customers looked quite scared in the face of this rampant sexiness. Anyway, being good Irish lads, we said a quick prayer and left.

There were definitely some butterflies, it being our first show of the week and the feckers were doing summersaults as we watched Squarehead play a great set. The clock struck midnight and we were on.

Like a box of chocolates in which 50% are Turkish delight (representing the industry heads), a show at SXSW can be a bit precarious. Thankfully audience and band were in sync tonight and we'd a great time. All the Irish bands support each other really well too, whether it's sharing gear, or just a shout of encouragement, and we spent the rest of the night enjoying first Funeral Suits and then Kodaline. and with Little Green Cars and The Lost Brothers added to the mix, I think the Irish presence at the festival is as strong as any and we're really proud to be part of it.

We were also delighted not to have to carry our equipment home on the bus. Some very kind friends, staying in a hotel downtown, let us stash our stuff with them for the night and so we strolled free and easy in the evening air, happy to have got off to a good start.

Ro.

[delorentos]

Thursday 14th March
Conference Day Stage show

I woke up early and sat in the back yard with a tea and a couple of slices of toast. The toast kinda tastes like toast and the tea kinda tastes like tea. Its like if in the future robots tried to recreate the popular products of humans based entirely on how people described them on Facebook. I'm starting to run out of clothes, i didn't pack enough t-shirts, so when i hit Austin centre i wandered around looking for a clothes shop or something. I never found a shop, but i was struck by the diversity of people around, different races, different nationalities, different music tribes, and all recognizably part of whatever culture they choose - you can nearly guess peoples nationality by their look and demeanor. At SXSW you can also kinda guess how old a band is by their clothes or style, generally the more cliched the style the younger the band. Also you can see lots of striking hipsters walking about. I've decided that a hipster is someone who grows a mustache even if they don't need it.

Anyway, at about 3 we met up and set up for our conference stage show. Its a very weird setting, a large grey conference room with chairs and a stage in it, and there's an odd set of rules expected of both the artists and performers - this is going to be weird folks, lets just get over it and see if we can have fun, ok? Anyway, we set up, we played and - apart from the fact that most of the sitting crowd seemed to be staring at their phones/tablets entirely through the performance, it was much better crack then it had any right to be. People spoke to us after the gig, but there was a bigger reaction on the internet. Perhaps thats what we should do for shows, have a real-time twitter feed running alongside us during shows instead of banter, and a Facebook "like" ticker instead of clapping. Maybe bands could probably poke groupies online too. There's probably already an app for this.

After some more awesome BBQ at the Ironworks restaurant, the evening was spent trying and failing to get into bigger gigs, drinking and watching bands that i can't remember the name of that i kinda liked a little because they sounded like other bands that i kinda liked a little. I'm trying to pick up cd's and stuff so i can discover all these bands afterwards, cos any of the bands i want to see now everyone else also wants to see, and its hard to get in to the shows. Also our artist wristband has no special privileges, (which i suppose is fair enough) so we gotta queue with everyone else, its hard especially if you got gear and shows to devote that much time to queueing. Instead big fat guys from big fat companies waddle down the badge pass lane into a show they'll probably tell the internet they saw but really they just stood around trying to figure out whether the guy onstage was a girl or not. Bah! If i see another guy with a big laminate at a show staring at their iPhone for the entire gig i'll stick a drumstick up their arse.

It's still deadly though.

K

ps: i'm mostly cranky cos i missed all my must see's because of queues or they were "badge-only" shows. Bah!

[delorentos]

Friday 14th March
Irish Breakfast, BD Riley's show

I sneezed myself awake at around 8am, a personal best on this trip. My body is pretty annoyed at me for flying around the world and not giving it the option to veto the arrangement, so its punishing me by being allergic to everything, getting shattered around 9pm and craving cheetos. anyway, after a quick shower to remove the cheese dust we headed in for more gigs and a few panels. I couldn't find a panel which suggested panels for protective panel-goers, so i settled on "Teaching cats the piano" and "Who actually let the dogs out - what the Baha Men can teach us about ourselves" however both were understandably full so i watched an interesting debate on snobbery in music and fiddled about on the internet.

Today was the hottest day so far so we sizzled on 6th street, caught in a struggle between enjoying the sun and trying not to arrive onstage looking like a bunch of naive lobsters. While devouring a delicious bag of cheetos, i wondered whether or not we had done enough on this trip, whether the people we wanted to play to would come and i guess whether or not we could get what we wanted out of it. I'm happy to try to distance myself slightly from the business side of things, but i guess its always somewhere in my head poking my brain with mild worry.

Anyway, after a mad and entertaining set by BP Fallon (with Blondie's drummer & the Stooges Guitarist) and another deadly set by Squarehead we jumped up, plugged in and tuned, in our 10 mins allotted set up time, and then played our gig of the week. The crowd were lively and up for it, and we loved every minute. I guess time will tell if the industry folks with the big laminates enjoyed it, but from a music point of view it was great.

Our lovely hosts Veronica and Kelly were also there and after a few South American interviews we sat at the back of the venue enjoying the rest of the bands and even Irish legends Ash. After, I sat outside on the path trying to soak it all in before we headed off at about 9. Our taxi was due to arrive at 4am to take us for our Memphis flight, so we aimed to get a few hours sleep, but Veronica had other ideas and, after a feed of beers and massive tequila shots, we barely got our heads down. Well, who needs sleep anyway?

SXSW, thank you, even though you're flawed and massive we love you!

Kieran

[delorentos]

Saturday-Sunday 17th March
Memphis, Tennessee

4.30 is a disgusting time in the morning, no matter which way you approach it. Either you've been out too late and are looking/behaving pretty bad, or you're up too early and looking/behaving pretty bad.

In our case we were due to fly to Memphis, Tennessee and had to haul ourselves to the airport. By the time we navigated the many, many musicians (comparing tattoos and pointy shoes) at Austin's international airport, we were pretty sleep deprived and/or hallucinating. On the plus side, we did bump into Monika Brodka (a Polish musician that Ross really likes). That, along with seeing Zoe Deschanel, means (no matter what happens) this trip has been a success for the drum section of Delorentos.

So, we arrived to the Econo-Lodge at the corner of 2nd and Union in Memphis, the cradle of the civil war, with the Mississippi shining like a national guitar. Either that or having a total of 4-5 hours sleep in the last couple of days is starting to take its toll.

We have double beds (AMAZING) but we are playing two gigs which means sleep deprived delorentos are playing outside the Brass Door in a couple of hours. After fish and chips, some college basketball and beers, I put on my shades. This is the second time I've worn shades at a gig, I look like a ponce but feel way less self-conscious during the gig. I always feel obliged to nod hello to people in the crowd if I accidentally catch their eye during a show, then, if I see them again during another song it gets awkward. So I spend most shows looking at the roof, my feet or Ross (anything distracting really). It's a small enough crowd, as the parade is starting down the road but we can see down to the streets below. In the distance in front of us is one of Austin's most famous landmarks, the Peabody building. Like a lot of Memphis it's a proud-looking mostly-vacant building, that commands your attention. But the South is something different altogether and an its amazing experience playing down here. During the gig I see steam coming from a building somewhere and the whole place looks like a batman film. Bugger, I got a second wind, so it looks like we'll be out late in Memphis tonight...

My first beer leads to my first Guinness and pretty soon were in a burger joint spitting cocktail sticks into the ceiling, it's ok though, it's a tradition here (18 hours without sleep, may not be a good judge of these things).

From there we wander to Beale street where all hell is breaking loose as people celebrate "St. Patty's day". I meet a man with a plate in his head, a 6inch scar on his neck and a felony conviction that stops him from practicing medicine. He gave me a beer and tells me about the time he fell out of a tree. I'll pretty much listen to anyone's life story if they give me a beer. We had a great time, but by the time he began telling me how all his teeth had gotten knocked out in a fight and why he was up in the tree in the first place, the lads arrived and we moved on through the crowd.

We spent a couple of hours trying to catch beads that are being thrown into to the crowd, we caught a few, and we didn't have to flash them (we didn't HAVE to flash). There is a very strange Paddy's day tradition here that involves a large green bus full of people dancing, throwing plastic beads into crowds (who go ape-shit crazy for the beads) while two guys representing 'the secret order of the boll weevils' jump around the roof of the bus (they kind of look like the rubber bandits, wearing all green , and they wear capes) all hell breaks loose again and then I leg it back to the hotel, locked.

The next day I slept for 14hours. I gather that the lads went to Graceland and Sun studios, they can tell you more about that themselves. When I got a cup of coffee I went to visit the Lorraine motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated, and spent some time in the national civil rights museum nearby, I'd recommend this to anyone that visits Memphis. I also spent the rest of the day going through our old demos, snatches of songs and melodies that we haven't used -and trying to think of ways of bringing some of them into our new songs.

The next night's gig, St Patricks Day, was really special. Seamus from the Brass Door drives everyone downstairs to the basement venue where we played and we play one our best shows ever. I've never seen Dan and Gouj having so much fun (with us). We played for an hour and a half, and were having a sweaty beer upstairs (the beer wasn't that sweaty, it was mostly us) when Seamus asked us to do one more. Everyone was spent, so I went back down on my own and sang Rattling Bog, Seamus hopped up onstage to help. I got as far as flea on the feather (for those of you that know the song) before saying thanks and explaining "that was an Irish rap". Ross was pretty sure I was going to pass out, but years of Boy Scouts experience had trained me well. That is not meant to sound sexual in any way.

As I write this it looks like last nights thunderstorms and snow have played havoc with the plane schedule and we may miss our connecting flight to Toronto. Looks like we'll have to spend the night in Newark airport, but someone else can tell you about that....

Nial

[delorentos]

Monday 15th March
Travel Day

After an awesome late breakfast (no-one does breakfasts like americans) we packed, left the faded glamour and personality of Memphis and hit the airport around 2.

Touring is great, but traveling days are mind-numbing most of the time. Its exciting reading about going on planes, and its amazing getting places, but the actual practicalities of travel are sometimes a pain in the balls. I'm sure when Bono and the lads were horsing around 80's USA, bringing them Emotions and seriousness and leather pants, they probably had loads of hilarious traveling messes. Like where the Edge ended up wearing Adam's knickers and stuff. (There's definitely a sitcom in there somewhere.) Its not as glamourous for us but fortunately, due to our frequent trips to Europe in the last two years we have a very simple set-up, clear bags of tiny bottles of everything, tiny carry-ons, and Nial folds up to a third of his size to fit in the overhead compartments. The other issue is delays, cancellations and mix ups. Today was a day involving all three.

Firstly, our flight to Newark was delayed due to snowstorms in Jersey, which means we'll miss our connector to Toronto. Shit! So do we spend the night in Memphis or Newark? We decided to fly to Romantic Newark and take our chances. Plus what would happen with our big pink suitcase full of pedals? After a bumpy flight in our tiny empress plane we landed (after a successful campaign guiding Mcguinness FC to Serie A on Football Manager) in Newark where the second flight hadn't yet taken off. I inhaled a Cheese Sandwich and headed to the gate, where we discovered that through some admin mix-up Ross and Adrian weren't booked on the flight. Their options: sleep in the Airport for two days or try flying through Pittsburgh. The stress was high and acute, but luckily after a nervous wait they managed to get on standby, and as two people missed the flight due to other cancellations, we all made it together. Because of the snow we then spent two hours on the tarmac whie they de-iced the plane before we eventually left for Canada. My Dad loves airplane crash programs so i was a bit freaked out then, Its always something to do with ice on those things. (In this time i managed to get McGuinness FC relegated to Serie B and i lost my job as manager. This kinda thing wouldn't happen to Bono.)

So we landed, delighted all the stress was behind us, and jumped in a taxi to our lovely hostel. Unfortunately, the Hostel we booked forgot to tell us that we were actually in their sister hostel, Hell. The place was like an abandoned national school, grey, sterile, and musty. The floors, toilets and beds were so dirty that we got a fit of the giggles laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation- its three in the morning, its heavily snowing, and we have nowhere else to go. We decided to stay there for a few hours until daylight then go grab another place that didn't look like an insane asylum from a b-movie. That night, we got 4 hours sleep, and we all slept in our clothes. Touring is great!

Kieran

[delorentos]

Tuesday 16th March -Thursday 17th March
Toronto CMW

Never before has a Holiday Inn been so appreciated. I'm sure the staff were slightly shocked as we embraced them and kissed their feet in gratitude for our new surroundings. Clean cotton bed sheets, soap!! We were going to be ok.

After hot baths, something delorentos never normally do and maybe just a final cleansing from Hell Hostel, we set out to enjoy the sights and sounds of Toronto. With Canadian Music Week proper not starting until Thursday, we had a couple of days free to explore the city and with our hats, scarves and lip balm at the ready, ventured determinedly into the snow.

Kensington market, not far from Hell hostel is an awesome place to visit. It's an old residential area, which over time has become a thriving market place full of little cafes, craft butchers, cheese mongers, print makers, bread bakers, etc. They even have a little vintage guitar shop. Only one left handed guitar unfortunately

On Wednesday evening the National Gallery of Ontario extends its opening hours and lets visitors in for free and I spent an hour soaking up inspiration from old masters to new Canadian artists and an exhibition of a collection of Patti Smith photographs. Most of the pictures are of herself or pals lounging in a decrepit looking studio apartment. Granted the imagery is very bohemian and quite sexy. Maybe a return to Hell hostel with a polaroid isn't out of the question!

While in the gallery, I had a text from Níal to run to a comedy improve show downtown in a venue called Second City. It's a famous institution where aspiring stand ups and other comedians hone their skills, and with pictures of Mike Myers and Eugene Levy on the walls, they clearly have a knack. I got there just in time to join the lads and we had a blast. One of the sketches centered on a young couples encounter with a border patrol officer and with our Russian adventure still ahead via re-entry to the US, its safe to say we all appreciated the tension.

On Thursday, show day, the conference and panel discussions began and myself and Kieran went in early to check stuff out. I went to a panel given by the Nordic music industry where they discussed the styles of music that go down well in the various countries and how to stop the diesel in your vehicle from freezing as you drive from one gig to the next I then enjoyed a keynote speech by one Jason Silva, he's a futurist sort of guy. If you read Wired magazine or look at Ted Talks you'll already know him, but to summarize, he's very excited about the future and looks forward to a day when we're all part Cyborg and store our emails in our cells, or something. Check him out.

I got lost on the walk back to our hotel and having forgotten to bring my phone, panicked when I needed the bathroom. I pictured the rest of delorentos finding me collapsed, unconscious , surrounded by yellow snow. 'Why don't you just go in any restaurant' I hear you scream, but I'm an artist and my life needs drama, so I wandered and I held it and in the end I made it, yes!

On a high after successfully completing my mission, my guitar felt light as a feather as we clambered aboard a tram that evening. We met old friends Heritage Centre and new friends Funeral Suits at the venue called Drake Underground. Everyone was buzzing and it turned into a great night. I felt it at SXSW and again at this show, the pride to be among these great Irish musicians. Maybe we're spoilt for choice at home and don't appreciate each other enough, but I've really enjoyed all the Irish acts on this tour and been inspired by their determination and sense of self.

As ever, there wasn't much time to celebrate after the show. With another 4am start and a marathon Toronto-New York- London -Moscow voyage ahead of us, we wished the other acts well for the rest of there tours and headed back to the hotel with a cool glass of sparkling water.

Ro

[delorentos]

Friday 18th March
Travel day

plane from Toronto - Newark
plane from Newark - London Heathrow
bus from Heathrow to Gatwick

urgghhh

Saturday 19th March
Moscow - Central house of Artists

We woke up in the prestigious Gatwick Travelodge, groggy and shattered. When I’m writing a tour diary I’m trying to be remotely interesting and give people an idea of what’s going on (partially for us to remember) and I pretty much always try not to talk about how tiring it can be, but after 3 and a half hours sleep for the second night in a row and a transatlantic flight my body is starting to react poorly. I seem to be visiting the bathroom incredibly regularly. I sleepwalk to the gate, through security, and onto the plane and doze all the way to Moscow.

Moscow airport is chaotic, and the signs are hopelessly foreign and alien. At the juice shop I point randomly at fruits I don’t recognise and try to mime “blending” and “drinking” to an impatient assistant. There were no oranges. The humanity! I fail and pick up a bottle of water, only to find out it is clear lemon concentrate. I drink the bitter liquid stubbornly. You won’t beat me Russia. I am a cultured and travelled man! Shortly afterwards I am wretching lemonwater and running to the loo again.

Luckily, we are met at arrivals by the lovely Dasha who talked us through our schedule and taught us some basic Russian. I ordered a sandwich while we waited for the van by pointing at my belly and then at the sandwich, then at my mouth. The sandwich woman thought I was mental. Finally I got the sandwich, and then thanked her in perfect Russian (the only word I remembered). Victory! Then I discovered it was turkey, pickles and pickled carrots. Stubbornly I ate a third of it, before my stomach decided to call a halt to the charade. Defeat!

We drove through the blizzard and our tiredness evaporated when we arrived at the venue. The process of taking it all in and the sheer sight of a giant bronze monument to Peter the Great (with an entire Ship on top of it) clicked our adventurous spirit into gear. After a quick Soundcheck and some noodles we headed to watch Dave McSavage and David O’Doherty perform to a packed crowd. At the end of each joke the audience would clap enthusiastically. The comedians looked a little bewildered. It was funny stuff though. After that we stood sidestage and watched We Cut Corners put on a great set to a lively audience. We’d been waiting for this show since the start of the tour, its sat on the horizon like a giant bronze statue of peter the great (with a whole ship on it).

The gig was great, and the Russian fella who did the trippy visuals did a great job. Afterwards we got presents of chocolate and beer and hung around chatting to the friendly locals. We probably should have gone to bed then, but we didn’t, we went to the pub and drank like Russian novelists, Surprisingly awake.

Kieran

[delorentos]

Sunday 20th March
Moscow - TV and show

7 hours sleep! When I woke up I was so rested I felt like I could see into the future. Glorious sleep, I thought, I will never forsake you again! I jumped out of bed, layered up with clothes and headed foolishly to Red square and the Kremlin. Unfortunately I got lost in the snow and just about made it back to the hotel in time to get the bus to the tv studios. I had underestimated the temperature and now felt like Tom Crean probably felt in 1916 on South Georgia Island: Cold, alone, scared, but determined. Thank god for my phone GPS, and McDonalds wifi or I would never have made it back. Exactly how Tom Crean probably did it.
We got to the tv studios, a huge steel bunker buried in the snow in west Moscow, and after a fairly surreal soundcheck (where our communication consisted of thumbs up and pointing and shrugging) we played some acoustic songs to the very appreciative audience. Every now and then someone would shout up something to us that seemed light-hearted and the audience would laugh. We’d then shrug and look mock confused, and they’d laugh again. They were laughing in Russian, but we understood… I think.

Afterwards the van and our lovely Russian guide, Alissia, brought us around Central Moscow. The snow was thick and heavy, and Alissia warned us that whatever chemicals the council spray on the footpaths to clear them disintegrates shoes, so to be wary of that. The cold was incredible, even with two pairs of socks, two jumpers, t-shirts and even socks over our gloves we froze like snowmen. After viewing the amazing Red Square (and taking cheesy tourist photos in front of St Basel’s) We stopped to buy some souvenirs for home. Nial took me aside to advise me to tackle the snot icicle hanging from my frozen face. “Muuhhhh?” I said through numb lips, pointing at my nose. “muhhhh!” said Nial, nodding sagely.

At 8 we headed downtown to the ‘Irish Week’ wrap party where most of the acts did a few songs. The venue was a very cool bar, kinda like a Parisian library. We only had one acoustic guitar so we played a couple of (very) stripped back songs. Dave McSavage did a bit and then We Cut Corners played a stormer. The Walls and Mundy were expected, but due to the blizzard pounding the building outside, never made it on time. We sat back and ate pizza and drank incredibly strong vodka until our taxi arrived at 1 am to take us home. We turned it down.

The details are sketchy for there on in, all the bands eventually arrived and it was a deadly night. There was dancing, singing and a mad nightclub called the Sexual Underground. At sunrise we walked back through the snowfall, the soles coming off our shoes, laughing and telling stories, and impervious to the cold. I think even Tom Crean would have been proud of the last three weeks of adventure.

Kieran

Thank you for reading! check out instagram.com/delorentos for pictures.
Thanks to Dan, Adrian, Leagues, Angela and everyone in New York, Austin, Memphis, Toronto and Moscow!