An Irishman abroad

Blooming Rain! - the night we joined Luka in the Park

Yesterday evening I went to an open air theatre nestled in a beautiful park in Deurne, situated in the outskirts of Antwerp. The venue is an impressive sight surrounded as it is by trees with a beautiful series of fountains in a moat that separate the audience from the stage. The venue uses these fountains and lights to entertain the crowd whilst the roadies prepare the stage, so to that extent it's used as a kind of stage curtain.
Pretty to watch (if a little bladder-inciting).

The performer last night was the Irish singer Luka Bloom. It rained most of the show, but spirits were not to be dampened and we had a great wee night.
Inspired by the event, I am now putting finger to key to recount the tale of:

Blooming Rain! - the night we joined Luka in the Park

Originally I was to go on my own with a Belgian friend called Dirk.

Now before I go any further I really must tell you a little bit about him, to get a better understanding of the guy....

Dirk is the biggest Irish wannabe that I have ever met in my life (and let's face it - who can blame him, eh?). He knows all about Ireland and its treasures. The Cliffs of Moher, Connemarra, The Giant's Causeway, The Antrim Coast, Dingle Bay, The Ring of Kerry, Donegal - the list goes on. Start talking about any of these places, and his face lights up and he becomes all misty eyed.

Highly commendable this behaviour though it undoubtedly is, I find the whole thing very strange and not simply because he's a Belgian, and should reserve this sort of pride and love for his own homeland but because he's never actually been to any of these places! Indeed, apart from a weekend trip to Dublin to watch the finest Irish folk singer that ever lived, Christy
Moore, perform; he has never been anywhere else in Ireland.

However - this is certainly not for the want of trying.

On three separate occasions he has booked flights, organised trips and made his itinerary to the South West of Ireland to see his beloved Dingle Bay and three times, for whatever reason, he has not made it. The last of these being less than 2 weeks ago.

So the question then arises - how does a Belgian bloke get to know a country that he has never really seen; so well as to hold the place and its people in such reverence? Simple - through our island's finest export - and I'm not talking Guinness, cheap tack with shamrocks on it, or drunken but well behaved football supporters.

Yes for it is through Irish music, that Dirk has become so interested in Ireland - its land, its history, its people. Dirk is passionate about his music full stop, but if there is one artist that would be head and shoulders above anyone else, in terms of his music, his live performances, his audience interaction, then for Dirk there is only one name.

Christy Moore.

But unfortunately Christy Moore wasn't playing last night - it was the next best thing - Christy's wee brother, Barry Moore.

Of course I'm being a wee bit flippant here. Barry Moore is a great musician/songwriter/performer in his own right, but unfortunately for him, he has always had to live in his brother's shadow. Indeed this was one of the reasons for his name change to Luka Bloom. The "Luka" comes from the Suzanne Vega song, the Bloom from the character Leopold Bloom in the James Joyce epic, Ulysses. Comparisons between the two are unfair, but I suppose inevitable. They are very different types of performers, with the similarity that they are both very successful in their own right. Mother must be looking down on them, a very proud woman.

Now when it comes to Dirk and Luka, strange things start to happen. This red-blooded 6 ft 5in Belgian man is reduced to a quivering, nervous schoolgirl at even the thought of seeing Luka Bloom perform live. Indeed he and the rest of the Luka "fandamentalists" go to extraordinary lengths to see their man perform. (Dirk was joined last night by people who had travelled from Germany, France and the Netherlands). And he and I are planning a trip to Finland to see him play next month. (I'm only going for the beer, and those famous Scandinavian ladies, you understand!).

In fact yesterday, I got an email from him in the afternoon, disappointed that he had just returned from the venue but the sound check hadn't happened yet.

The man was obviously starting to unravel.

It looked I was going to be in need of some back-up. Up stepped Janet, our Canadian friend and Colin, a friend from Cork and the person that I currently share an apartment with, who decided that joining me on a dull and miserable evening for an outdoor concert was way better than what they had on their respective agendas. Indeed Colin even gave up the prospect of a
"bit of loving with a chick". A testament to Luka's appeal if ever there was.

Upon arrival, we encountered our first problem. Of the four of us Dirk had a ticket, as well as myself "thanks" to Dirk's father unable to make it due to feeling ill.

So the first mission impossible was to get Janet and Colin tickets for a sold-out concert. A concert that had been sold out for weeks. There hadn't been tickets available anywhere on the internet and all the websites on the concert were telling us it was sold out.

So what did we do? We went to the ticket desk and errr, bought two tickets.

OK, ok - they were only standing tickets - but it's an outdoor venue and the security was a little bit lax, so Janet, Colin and Myself (JC+M) managed to find seats as far away from Dirk (aka Steven Spielberg) as possible.

Now don't get me wrong - the guy's a nice fella and all that - but when he goes to a concert - he can be nothing short of a "blooming" liability (pun intended). He brings a rucksack full of drinks (choose from wine, soft drinks, water), food, blankets, pillows, cuddly bear - you name it - Dirk's rucksack has it.

And that's before I mention his photographic and sound recording equipment.

Honest to God, the man walks into a concert looking like an extra from Robocop, so tooled up with gadgets is he. Microphones strategically placed under shirt collars, infra-red cameras pointing at the stage and even bloody camcorders!

So off he rushes to get a great seat, dead centre, 3 rows back from the stage. And off we go to dead centre, 3 rows back...from the back of the venue.
To be fair - they were great seats and they offered a great view of the stage, not to mention great access to the toilets and the bar - something that was to prove to be a bit of a Godsend during the shows.

I say "shows" because there was a support act. A sort of hillbilly, folky, Beatles-y, CCR-y band called "The Real Ones". From Norway. Complete with bare-footed guitar player.

I kid you not.

To be honest it must have been a bit daunting for them when the curtains pulled back, sorry - the fountains stopped gushing and they were greeted with perhaps 700 people, sat in broad daylight, staring at them intently, making no noise.

At all.

To be fair the lead singer tried his best to break the silence and loosen everyone up with that world-renowned Norwegian humour.

Yes, quite.

Actually, it was a decent enough attempt, referring to the fact that usually when they come to Belgium from Norway, they travel to a warmer climate. This time it had not been the case at all.

"Lasht noyt we plade in Norway, yessh?" "And it wash ssho hot we were shwetting" The lead singer - a bearded mop-haired fella - looking like a reject from CCR, informed us.
"But then we arrived in Belgium, yesh? And we had to put our clothes back on!!"

Silence.

Well, not quite.

JC+M managed to have a little titter, but to be honest, speaking for myself, I was laughing at the uncomfortableness of it all. It was like watching a hippy Norwegian version of the BBC sitcom The Office, with the singer being "Daniel Brentsonnss" or something like that and us, his long-suffering employees.

To say he bombed with that one would be a bit of an understatement. But I knew they were going to be ok, because he had already played in Belgium before and would have experienced a Belgian audience. Middle aged Belgian audiences are strange. They sit so attentively whilst the artist/band perform and listen to everything. Their attitude is, "I've paid to watch you play
and I don't want to waste it by hearing my own voice or anyone else's for that matter, thank-you very much!!". An attitude all-together different to the Irish "let's get drunk and sing louder than him!" attitude.

Once a song finishes, they then cheer and applaud with such wild enthusiasm that it actually comes as a shock to you when it happens, but then they quickly calm down and keep quiet as the next song begins.
Personally, I enjoyed the support band and I'm pretty sure the audience did as well. It certainly takes a bit of getting used to, but for a performance like last night's the crowd's faultless attention was actually perfect.

After "The Real Ones" left the stage to loud applause, the fountains came back and Colin and myself went one of our many beer runs. By now it had started to get dark, and the evening, which had been dry up until this point, offering encouragement for those (i.e. me) who had hoped they would be privy to a pyrotechnic accompaniment from God himself - in the form
of a meteor shower that had been widely reported that would be happening that evening, suddenly took a turn for the worse.

The clouds that had appeared overhead by then offered little in the way of encouragement for any amateur astronomers that might have been there at the gig. And indeed, right on cue, just as the man-made waterworks were stopping to reveal the stage, the God-made waterworks began to fall from the heavens above.

Cue a bit of a panic, and much reaching for umbrellas. This can get very frustrating if you're trying to watch a concert. As the crowd settled, the fountains stopped revealing the expensively assembled set that the venue had organised:- a table with a vase of flowers, a couple of microphones and a simple, small seat - the kind you see in IKEA in the section where you can kit out your entire kitchen with the pocket money of an 8-year old.

The crowd, which had by now swelled to a capacity 1300, quickly settled to a reverent hush.

Sitting on the seat was the man himself - guitar on knee, with a soft light shining on him.

This was much appreciated. Because as we were to find out later – when it came to dishing out the good looks, God must have been out to lunch when wee Barry Moore came along...

The next thing I noticed was that the guitar was acoustic (oh there's no flies on this boy, let me tell ya), and that the microphones were all placed at his seat level. Also, there were no other guitars on stage. This was going to be a 100 percent acoustic affair. To be honest, I was a bit nervous - I respond better to people performing energetically on the stage interacting
with the audience. A middle aged bogman from Kildare with a guitar sat down for nearly two hours was not the thing to get me up and swinging from the rafters.

But I needn't have worried.

From the opening notes of a slightly Spanish sounding instrumental version of "The Curragh of Kildare" he slipped seamlessly into his first offering, a new song from his upcoming album. From the moment his voice fell into the silence, the audience were captivated. Like a true performer he had all 1300 of us in his hand for the entire show.

Well, apart from the times we went for more beer, to the toilet, or when we almost wet ourselves when a huge insect climbed out of Colin's crotch.
So that's what happens to crabs, if you don't get them treated! (Colin reckoned it was the radiation from the sunbed that did it to them...)

At one stage, I thought things were going to get ugly and no - I don't mean anything to do with putting Luka Bloom's face up on a big screen. The lady's umbrella in the row in front knocked over a couple of our beers. Colin's retaliation of "spearing" the spike at the top of her umbrella with one of the empty plastic Stella Artois beakers was inspired to say the least.
Proceeding to throw 1 euro cent coins into it wasn't as reckless as it sounds - Belgium recently announced that it is planning to scrap the 1 and 2 euro cents...

At this point, I should explain, Colin and myself got all patriotic about coming from our respective parts of the emerald isle and going out to see one of our finest performers play in our adopted home city. For the benefit of the concert and for the greater good, we put aside political and religious differences and formed a united Irish front for the duration of
the gig. All be it in a way that rested easily on each of our shoulders - i.e. avoiding the chips that were already on them.

Dressed in green (Colin in his Republic of Ireland Shirt and me in my Northern Ireland shirt) we held the Irish Tricolour between us with pride.
Colin holding the green side and me holding the orange side, with Janet the peacemaker, holding the white in the middle.

At one point, the "united-Irish" boys decided to storm the stage (well the area in front of it at any rate) and ran down the steps waving the flag between us, inducing a ripple of laughter from some in the audience and not so much as a glance in our direction from the man we were trying to impress up on the stage. Suitably deflated by this shun, we retreated to the bar area before returning to our seats the back way and without the Irish flag or any dancing, with our tails between our legs.

Apart from these antics to amuse us, we also had the nice little personal drama of me having to try my best to gently let down a girl who was fast becoming a bit of a stalker for me. I made the mistake of kissing her a couple of times recently but I really am not interested. Vulnerable, yes. Desperate, no.

This girl however, was very interested. She was making all sorts of plans and then bombarding me with them via text messages. It was fast becoming apparent that I would have to nip things in the bud, before they got out of hand. So, the three of us put our heads together and came up with the “perfect” gentle let down and I sent her the text message aimed to gently let the girl down and thus avoiding me being the bad guy.

Needless to say, based on the “textual intercourse” that took place after that - it failed in both counts…. I was made to feel terrible but at the same time wildly appreciative of the bloke or girl who came up with text messaging. Thanks nerdy person, you saved me having to do it by face! In my defence, she did no what she was doing – like a lion stalking it’s prey, she pounded on the weakest in the herd. My not-so-recent break-up has been well documented and my condition in both occasions could be described as “under the weather” at best…

Speaking of the weather, rain is usually a bit of a no no. But in fact, if anything, there was something about the whole evening that made the rain an integral part of proceedings.
As we all huddled together under umbrellas, he sung a song, in Gaelic, without any musical assistance. Just the bogman's voice between himself and the audience.

Hearing that strange old language being sung with such passion, to a staccato backdrop of falling raindrops, surrounded by trees as dusk quickly turned to the enveloping blackness of night is a memory I shall cherish for a long time. Truly beautiful.

There was also the added bonus of the knowledge that because of the rain, Steven Spielberg would be sat in his seat unable to record the proceedings with his electrical equipment, although I think it allowed him to appreciate the music and the performance even more, judging by his reaction when we met him after the gig.

He quickly followed that song with a song that he had written for his big brother called "The City of Chicago". One of my favourite Christy Moore songs, Colin and myself upset the apple cart a little bit by actually breaking the silence and joining in with Luka. Great stuff indeed (or so we thought after a few beers)

Before finishing he sang what has sort of been a bit of an anthem for him - a song called "The bogman".

I had the pleasure of once meeting a girl called Mary Alice from Castlebar, Mayo in the West of Ireland (or "Wesht of Ireland" as she would say it).
I actually met her in Antwerp of all places and we became very close. I say pleasure, because she is truly a beautiful person and one of the nicest people I have ever met. Despite coming from opposite sides of the divide in Ireland we shared some good times together and also a passion for our music, especially Christy Moore.
One day, she happened to call me a bogman and I remember being truly offended by this. She then explained to me that it was a fine compliment.
"Stop the lights JB! - sure there's nothing more genuine and honest than a bogman!!" she said to me. "And that's exactly what you are! Sure a bogman is a fine thing!"

And it has always stuck with me.

So as Luka Bloom sang out the words about the man who'd:
“love to see Arizona
Or the West Australian sands
But my heart belongs to those precious wetlands
No matter where your travelling takes you
Sure the bog will never leave you
I'm a bogman
Deep down, its where I come from...”

I sat there wearing the green of my homeland and holding a flag which, as a symbol, can cause so much offence where I come from, I looked across at my Catholic friend from the "rebel county" of Cork, and I thought to myself, sure isn't a great thing to be Irish - from the North or South......



AUGUST 2004
Dedicated to Mary Alice and Colin - two of the finest rebels I've ever met!!
I love the pair of ya's!