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Flogged
To make this article fit in with the column's name, just know I used my tip
money to finance all I'm about to write. Everyone agreed that that's
fair enough? Good. Now on with the show…
Saturday morning I kissed my sons goodbye and hopped into the Malibu to
speed away to Dublin, Ohio to see Flogging Molly at an Irish Festival.
They were going to play both Saturday and Sunday, and being my favourite
band, I wasn't going to miss this for the world. For three months I've
known about this, planned for this and waited patiently and impatiently for
the time to come when I'd be face to face with Irish Punk's greatest
invention since… umm… well, an invention less great. I'm not a bloody
Punk Encyclopedia, so bare with me. All I had to do was ride in the
car for 2 hours and 59 minutes and there I'd be… in heaven. 3 hours
would be silly… it was 2 hours, 59 minutes according to MapQuest and they're
like experts or something. I planned on using that extra minute to
hyperventilate. Time flew by, and in no time at all I was at my hotel
nearing hyperventilation just knowing that somewhere in that Columbus suburb
were my gods, my personal deities. I even held back the urge to
continue calling Dublin, Ohio "PsuedoDublin", or "FauxDublin" for a few
minutes just because they made me so giddy goofy he-he-he for bringing in
Flogging Molly.
So
SyntheticDublin was alive and bustling already. Word was out that so
many people were attending the festival this year that there was no parking
and you would have to take shuttles to and from your hotel. No worries
about that for me as I planned on being pissed to the eyes on Guinness,
marinated in Guinness, crawling on the ground til Guinness leaked from pores
like a dark stout perfume, so keep me far from the highways and byways.
My pockets were laden with money and, with camera in hand, I hopped this
shuttle and off I was to the land of the Cubic Zirconia Isle to make merry
with the Irish-Americans and Americans who claimed to be Irish-American for
a weekend. I had several hours before the show which meant I could
make with the merry and drink with the best of 'em for quite a long time.
The
festival rose to my ears before I could catch sight of it through the
shuttle windows. I could hear the pipes, the harps, the fiddle.
I closed my eyes and for a moment it seemed as if Dublin wasn't just a
mocktail. For a moment it sounded and smelled like the real O'Malley.
I reminded myself to not get caught up in the whole "Kiss Me, I'm Irish"
shenanigan and to remember my roots. Nothing maddens me more than
hearing everyone claim to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day and festivals.
My grandmother is from Dairy,
North Ireland [Editor's note - it IS Dairy, not
Derry] and I don't claim to be Irish and rarely do I claim to be a
fourth Irish. Yet as I climbed off the shuttle, all I saw for miles
was thousands upon thousands of people who were doing just that. The
trouble is, they were happy, a community of strangers and it was all so
addicting. They were wearing green and most men were in kilts, and as
blood boiling as it would normally be for me, I smiled and thought this the
greatest place since Disney World. And all that BEFORE I got in the
beer line!
Killian's sponsored the fair so my hopes of a Guinness induced delirium were
dashed. I settled for Killian's since I have to settle for it in this
country half the time anyway, and ordered two at a time for hours so as to
not waste time standing in line. There were vendors to shop at, music
tents to peruse, authentic homemade Americanised Irish stew to be ate, and
medieval Irish reenactors. I drank and walked, shopped and drank,
listened and drank and drank and ate, all the while searching the crowd for
my hero, the lead singer of Flogging Molly, David King. Ahhhhh David,
the Exiled Son of the Really Real Dublin. This musical genius had made me
worship his words and notes since the moment I was introduced to his CD.
Somewhere amongst the thousands he could be sitting by the lake and jotting
down his next masterpiece on a Steak N Shake wrapper. I had nine
Killian's in me and so that made sense at the time.
But
let's skip all this mooning and swooning for a moment and just head to the
show, shall we? After all, I could write about each beer I drank, each
step I take and every move I make, but it'd get boring. It may be
boring now, for all I know, since this is the crazed ramblings of a fangirl.
Frankly, my dear Scarlett, I don't give a damn. She was an O'Hara… I
can quote that here and make it fit.
The
show was at 10pm, and was inside a tent ready for maybe 100 people.
What the PleatherDublin did not know was how big Flogging Molly was in the
punk circuit. They hadn't prepared for a crowd and an anarchist one at
that. As I stood front and center against the stage and saw the three
rent-a-cops "guarding" it, I knew it was going to get ugly. Or
chaotically beautiful, depending on how drunk you were. At that point,
I was feeling strong-willed thanks to Killian's. I wasn't going to
move or be moved. Several young girls tried to weasel their way in
front of me, and were let known they would be wiped off my shoe if they
tried it again. I'm not a fall down drunk nor a silly giggly drunk.
I'm a brave, mean and matter-of-fact drunk. I say it how it is and how
it will be, whilst appearing sober the entire time. Example… "You're
not getting in front of me," (how it is), or "I'll be wiping you off my
shoe." (how it will be.) Doth endeth the lesson. To the left of me
was a fellow with more piercings than… umm… something pierced a lot.
To the right of me were two girls I met earlier who were joking about our
demise. "We'll be trampled to death by middle-schoolers." one kept
saying as we watched our Killian's get spilt on each other as more people
tried to file in. My Flogging Molly t-shirt already smelled like
brewery and punk sweat (as the temperature was overwhelmingly hot and I was
being pressed like… umm… something that gets pressed hard… against the
barricade.) Just as I started to take a swing at some squirrelly
little preteen who was inching into my groove, the lights dropped down and
there before my eyes was Flogging Molly. I was standing at the
kneecaps of David King.
They
started to play and the crowd went silent, mesmerised by the fiddle, the
accordion, the bass and the drums. An Irish melody sweet and pure
filtered through the small tent and all were spellbound. David sang in
his thick brogue, and all ears were on him as the music started to change
and you could feel the swell of it like a wave about to crash as it paused
for a moment before rocking out hard and fast. Then it hit.
Three hundred people flung themselves toward the stage screaming out the
words of rebels, shouting and flailing and smashing into each other that "no
ball or chain or prison shall keep" them. I stood my ground, took my
licks, clutched my beer and stared at David King as if he had a halo and
could walk on water. The cops started to use my body and the pierced
lad's beside me as a pole vault to get to the downed younguns in the middle,
and still I stared and jumped and sang. My beer was smashed into my
right breast, and still I stood my ground and accepted my slams and could
not have been more in awe. Occasionally I had to swing back, elbow and
curse, but it made me feel alive. I could feel the music in my soul
and the beer in my blood (and on my boob). I didn't care that the
American youth was screaming for freedom against the English that they had
already received in 1776. I didn't care that they took on the words of
the oppressed Northern Irish while their stars and stripes, their symbol of
freedom waved from the rafters of the tent. Their Abercrombie shirts
were so out of place with their hands raised high yelling "Oi! Oi!
Oi!", but screw 'em. I was drunkly and not in the mood for waxing
politics.
Reinforcements were brought forth. An army of police in blue shorts
marched in and took out tables and chairs and anything that could be used as
projectiles. They set up a barrier, a three foot high fence made of
orange plastic mesh to keep the revelers from sneaking behind the make shift
stage. Being in the front row, I could see these officers snagging pit
surfers and leading them away from the area towards the mesh knee curtain.
The Brads and Steves and Tiffanys would flail and kick, spit and curse to
get free of their grip. Once they'd wiggle free, they would run for
freedom laughing, only to be stopped dead in their tracks by the
kryptonite-like plastic fence. It was more than comical to watch them
protest for their independence only to be knocked back on their arse by
their inability to leap. Not even "leap" so much as "step over".
So I watched the motley teens doing their motley things while watching the
band and avoiding blows. They played for two hours, maybe longer for I
had the sudden realisation that I came on a shuttle. A shuttle that
was leaving at Midnight. In the middle of a song, I had to leave like
Cinderella and it's any wonder I didn't lose a shoe. I ran like the
wind, pushing and shoving past stragglers to make it to the shuttle stop on
time. Which I did, obviously.
The
following day I woke in my hotel room grinning. I was bruised and
limping and couldn't hear, but it didn't matter. I couldn't wait to
head back on the shuttle and do it all again for their afternoon show.
The night before there had been threats to shut it down, so I hoped they
would still be allowed to perform. I had only seen three or four
people taken away in ambulances from heat exhaustion and that seemed like a
fairly low number. I rode in the shuttle, listening to the elderly
talk about the event. They whispered about the band and how "wild" it
got and I just smiled for being part of it and not being a whisperer.
It dawned on me through the fog in my brain that I had slipped my camera
from my pocket and used it to punch someone in the back of the head near the
middle of the concert. More memories started to surface as we reached
the fest. Could that have been me, sweet innocent me and the mother of
two, who shouted a string of obscenities at the man at the shuttle stop with
"The Yankees Suck and Jeter Swallows" t-shirt? How many times did I
ask him if he found that funny before I moved on to the next victim?
No matter, for I was back at the beer tent and then on to Molly.
Before
entering their venue, I paused behind it to drink my beer so as to not wear
it. I had just finished one and tossed the plastic cup, when my David
King senses started tingling. I turned slowly like one does in the
movies and there he was a few feet away; his red hair all unkempt, his aged
face, a zoot suit with a troll doll in the breast pocket, a Guinness in hand
and a smile on his face, and all I could say was, "David King." (because he
forgot who he was, maybe?) But aside from my moronistic appearance, he
walked over, all 5'5" of him and put his hand out which I shook and shook
and shook. I told him what a fan I was (typical fangirl dialogue from
the FanGirl RuleBook), and how great the show was last night (rule #3, I
guess). He laughed and said he was almost arrested for cursing in a
public forum so had to watch his "Fecks" and "Bastards" all afternoon now.
Then he asked me questions about where I was from and then handed my camera
to the nearest lad to snap our picture. After a little more
conversation, he gave me a hug… and like that, he was gone. It was
then that I used that one extra minute to hyperventilate. I felt like
Marsha did when she met Davey Jones… "I'll never wash this cheek again."
Nothing after that point matters so I won't even go into details. Who
cares that I drank more and had KFC for dinner before returning home?
I'm looking at the length of this tribute and cannot decide what I would
remove to make it any shorter. So, I'll leave it "as is" in a
rebellious "I was punk for a weekend" way. I'll step away from the
words to gush over the twenty pictures of David King, the band, and I Can't
Believe It's Not Dublin.
Slainte! |
