Ballybofey, Mon 10th Sept.
Sometimes the geography involved in gigging around the country can come down to sheer good luck or indeed bad luck but sending us to Donegal the night after Wexford stinks of premeditated cruelty to me.
Of course being jolly good eggs and well rounded human beings we didn’t complain. We just got on with it. Much as people did during the war. Irish comedians are a happy bunch who stick together and except whatever comes their way through thick and thin. (Where’s the sarcasm option on Windows?)
So after driving back from Wexford, Jason, Jarlath and myself headed for Donegal. Any comedian worth his salt should be able to rattle off the top five petrol stations in the country at will. We came across one I hadn’t been in before just before Castleblaney. We liked this one because it seemed to have all amenities as well as added sunshine which was nice. There was wooden benches outside, the sun was beaming down and as we sat there eating Chewits and Chocolate Eclairs I realised that this was the most summery thing I’d done in Ireland all year. Jarlath raised to question as to why it was still called an Indian summer when surely now it should be known as an Irish summer or indeed just summer.
Got to Ballybofey at about six and checked into The Villa Rose’s secret luxury hotel that they keep hidden out the back. Went up to the venue which is the wonderful Balor theatre. The Balor theatre in Ballybofey is a joy to behold. A beautiful venue on the Main St. It helps that it’s impeccably run by Conor. Conor of the Balor is one of the good guys. And deserves huge credit for the continued success of the Balor. We phoned Conor from the car on the way up and Jason asked him was there any chance of getting him a hula-hoop for his magic trick. Conor said he’d try and before he hung up Jason added ‘oh and three surprises as well’. When we arrived backstage. There was the hula hoop and three surprises. The surprises were, a rubiks cube, a pair of bottle washers, and an activity set for three year olds. This was even more perfect than could be imagined. Jarlath being the geeky smart one took the Rubik’s cube, me being the domesticated anal one took the bottle washers which even more perfectly left Jason Byrne with an activity set for three year olds. By the way if you want to add in your own gags about anal and bottle washers feel free, it certainly wasn’t my intention.
Anyway it has to be said the gig that night was a complete fucking ride. Can’t say any more about it. One other point of interest from the night was PJ Gallagher arrived at the show with his mother. He was staying in Letterkenny with loads of Gallaghers because they’d just broken some world record or something, There were 1500 Gallagher’s in a car park that day. As I’m sure was said about 1500 times that day, at least they got the weather for it. Actually maybe they broke the record for the most time the term Indian summer was used in a car park.
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