The Rain in Bray Stays Mainly Away (When We Play)

By Richard Deering

The second adventure in the Foot Squeaker Guerilla Tour took us up that magical N11 and into the loving arms of the glorious Bray town.

Bray has always fascinated me. It comes with a hard exterior but it's a place I personally have spent a lot of time in over the years and I was sure it'd be an excellent spot to play a bit of music for the people.

We had decided to head for the lively Bray seafront and upon arriving we were delighted to see we had picked right, a good energy and big crowds buzzing around, walkers to Bray head, families out for a stroll, it was perfect. We selected a spot over looking the sea and got set up.

As we got to setting up, I had a thought. I don't think I've ever gotten to play music while looking at the sea before, that in itself is a new experience and makes the trip worthwhile so all we would need was people to listen and hopefully enjoy for it to be worthwhile. Then, just as we were ready to play, a man walking his dog stopped to read our poster...and his dog took a massive steaming whopper poo right in front of us. Excellent.

Fair play to the man, he was super apologetic and did his best to clean it up, but he kind of just wiped the scutter all over the path in front of us and created a kind of dog poo barrier between us and our lovely bray audience. I'm sure there is some poetic metaphor that can be used here but in reality we just said ,"ah it'll be grand" and went with it. I saw about 10 people unknowingly walk through the scutter trail as we played and I have to say, it spoiled the sea view.

The gig went well though, the rain held off and we were delighted to see people stop and enjoy our music, everyone was incredibly nice and supportive, the standout moments of the gig being meeting the bassist of Bagatelle out walking his dog and him enjoying it and at one stage an elderly man stopped and listened to our cover of Old Man by Neil Young which was a lovely little poignant moment.

It's those little moments that make this guerilla gig tour we're doing so important. Each of us have played many gigs in different venues across the country, but it's the little wild, crazy and personal moments that make this a different venture. That was our reason for doing this and I think we can all feel that the personal connections and reactions we get are far more worthwhile than a couple of likes on a video or post online.

All in all, Bray was a great experience. Sea Views, Bagatelle and dog shit (New Song Title). Where else would you get it. We will be back but for now onto the next adventure.