The crew who organise these festival came to see us perform last year in Clifden when we were performing there during their arts week so we had in a sense auditioned for the Drumshanbo possee and we knew what to expect from their side also cos on meeting them they seemed like really nice people with a healthy dose of insanity thrown in for good measure.
Drumshanbo is a small town set among the lakes and rivers that make up that part of the country, we read in a book there once that this part of ireland (Letrim) is where the land is sold by the gallon and in fairness they do have a powerful amount of water knocking about from rivers to lakes to really large puddles. For a kerryman like me who is used to looking at the horizon and seeing a range of mountains which stretches from one end of the sky to the other not having mountains can be a tad unnerving but the lakes at least go some way to compensating for this.
Anyway on to the festival itself we turned up early as usual in order to get sorted with our accomadation and also to set up the show. Turns out we were staying over a local pub in a b and b. So we were positioned in a carpark just off the main street near some bouncy castles where all the action was to take place. We were asked to do the show around 3 ish so we were set up and ready by 2. The signs were not good however on the weather front and lo and behold just as we started up the shoow the skies opened on us. We were working opposite to a really good street magician whose name escapes me for the moment but when i remember i will blog it cos he was a good magician and also seemed like a really nice guy. Anyway he finished his show and we started straight away after him but just at the start of the show a deluge arrived and scattered our audience. So after taking steps to keep our electrics dry and safe we sought shelter. Nearby stood a phone box so we headed for it and in this phone box stood a German lady who was also sheltering from the rain, so all three of us squeezed in to the phone box nice and cosy. Now as our radio mics were on and as there were people standing around under the eaves of buildings in shelter we decided that it may be a good idea to interview this lady much to the amusement of ourselves, the lady, the other sheltering heads and the ladys husband who just happened to be sheltering in the next door phone box.
Eventually the rains stopped and we went out to survey the damage, of which there was none, we were however hacked off cos we were really pumped about doing a good show and having a show pulled for any reason is terrible and leaves you feeling empty and unsatisfied. We would have done a show straight away following our emergence from the phone box but by that stage we had to head off to join up with the parade. We resolved as a plan B to do the parade and straight after to do a show while the crowd was lingering. This turned out to be a great idea as there were so many people around after the parade and we pulled off a really great show. The show contained one small piece of comic genius from ronaldo who took advantage of the fact that we were performing next to a phone box when it came time for him to make the transformation into Superman he was able to dash into the phone box to affect his transformation in a right good cinematic reference.








Following our show we gathered our equipment and spent some time chatting to the French magician and then sped off into Carrick on Shannon in order to score some tasty grub to feed the fanzini machine. We strolled around Carrick for a while before we eventually stumbeled across a mighty Indian resturant by the name of Shamrat which is located upstairs on Bridge st in Carrick, if you are in Carrick and a hankering for some spicy magic check it out. Indian resturants are really common in this country and generally not of a very high standard, Shamrat despite the mildly comic name rose above the normal bog standard and delivered a really nice meal, reasonably priced and well presented just what the doctor ordered.
After our meal we rushed back to drumshan as we lovingly called the place for the fireworks display and had a few drinks in the pub in which we were staying. We also got the hang out and have the crack with the organising commitee of the festival who were all lovely individuals. All in all a pretty good day you would have to say. Apart from the rain perhaps.