Crazy Craic in Cork (Bai)

By Richard

This weekend the Foot Squeaker Show wound its way past the Comeragh mountains across to the real capital of Ireland, the people's Republic of Cork, to play in our favourite haunt, Fred Zepplins.

The plan was to get down early, set up and busk before the show, and as the sun was beating down onto the Grand parade with people buzzing all around we thought, "Sure this is the bloody spot right here" and the bloody spot it indeed was.

We as a group have loading gear out from the van down to a fine art at this stage, pull the van up, hazards on, bish bash bosh we're set up in 15 mins. Easy.

This time however, we timed our load out pit stop at the exact same time as a pro Palestine march started and took up the entire road on the grand parade.

Fair play to them, they were out in numbers and were singing for Palestinian rights loud and proud, but I cant help but remember the funny looks I got as they surrounded the little red Berlingo stopped in the middle of the (now empty) street and had to step out and around the sweaty, bearded, panicked looking man dragging a massive bass drum through the middle of them and across the road.

While busking, Its fair to say we met every kind, colour and shape of character Cork city has to offer. We had helpful (and unhelpful) tips on how to get people dancing, offers of a poetry reading, strangely intense staring competitions and even a conversation with a nice man, who had recently left this dimension, about the trees being connected by the mushroom Internet (The subject of our next song).

We experienced the streets of Cork with all of its heart and soul and we loved every second of it.

Then it was on to Fred Zeppelins. I personally love this place and that love was only strengthened as I dragged the gear up the stairs headbanging along to Slipknot. That's my kinda bar.

T.P Allen and Lethologica were the supports and absolutely rocked the spot, warming up the crowd perfectly for us to come on and play what we all felt was the best show of the tour so far.

As the final chords rang out, I cant help but hope we will be back playing in Cork again sooner rather than later.

Up Cork.

Up Foot Squeaker.

Onto the next one.

Rich xoxo