tagged:

New Brighton Festival

Posted by manicdrums in 2002 John Jorgenson & Friends UK Tour

The day started quite bright and hopeful, but got steadily darker and darker, which does not bode well for our OPEN AIR gig tonight! The trip was a mere 25 miles, and we arrived in plenty of time, after a short shopping trip into Chester, too. The stage is on a bandstand in the middle of the local park in New Brighton. No sooner had we offloaded than it started to pour with rain. We took advantage of the shower to find our accommodation and settle in.

We are not here for long, as our ferry leaves Holyhead (100 miles West of here) at 4am. But there will be time to get a coule of hours rest.

About 10 minutes before the opening act were due to start playing, the clouds parted, and we were bathed in evening sunlight! This did little to encourage the crowds out though, and the best thing that can be said about the attendance is they enjoyed what we did. Of course we ran way over curfew, which incurred the wrath of a small, but vociferous residents’ lobby! Needless to say it was after 10pm before we got back to the B&B. So I had a short nap, a shower and was back down by the van for 12.30am. By 2.30am, we were sitting in the parking lot at Holyhead, waiting to load onto the Sea Cat. These are amazing things…. a huge catamaran, powered by water jets. They manoeuvre like a tiny boat, turning on a dime in the dock, and yet they plough through the water at speeds in excess of 40 knots (close to 50mph), and carry cars, trucks, buses, vans etc.

After we boarded, I managed to lie down for a while. Although it was not possible to really call it SLEEP, I did feel refreshed afterwards, and with a large Latte inside me, I felt ready to tackle the Irish roads. The great thing about arriving in Dublin at 6am was there was almost no traffic. So we were on the main road to Waterford in 30 minutes. Irish roads are something

to behold! For the first 40 miles or so out of Dublin, the main Waterford road is like most freeways in the USA. Then it becomes like a State Road (2 lanes each way, but without much protection between the carriageways). But once you get beyond about 60 miles, then it turns into a County Road. One lane each way, with the ‘passing lane’ on the inside, which doubles as a hard shoulder. So getting any trucks to move over willingly is no easy task. In the end, you almost have to come up behind the truck at speed, flashing

your lights until they begrudgingly move across. Even then it is a good idea to get past as quickly as possible, as they have a nasty habit of pulling BACK onto the main carriageway just as a car approaches in the opposite direction (often to avoid a donkey cart trotting along the shoulder, oblivious to the world around it). For the last 25 miles into Waterford, even this hard shoulder disappeared and the road resembled a small country lane in the UK (except that there are not fully laden tractor-trailer units bouncing down the road towards you in the UK). Needless to say, it took a while to cover the 90 miles from Dublin to Waterford. We eventually pulled up outside the hotel at around 9.30, to discover our rooms were not ready (despite our attempts at getting the agent to arrange an early check-in). So we went into town for a breakfast. The local promoter has done a great job in publicising the gig. Posters are everywhere: in shop windows, on billboards. Certainly no lack of publicity! I eventually got to bed around 11am, which was too late by a long way.