I am sure most of you know that I was in London last Wednesday night to see the Avett brothers play at Shepards Bush. I travelled down with my pal Mark, and another guy Jamie and when we arrived in London we met my cousin Caoimhe, Mark's parents and a man named Danny. While first impressions were fabulous, I did not think that I would have such a hilarious night, nor did I expect to come home with a sprained foot!
For myself and Caoimhe it was our first time seeing the Avett brother's live. The show was superb. The band play a variety of instruments, and much to my delight the stage was home to a double bass, a cello etc.... It turns out that both Caoimhe and I are very similar, in life as well as musical taste, and she announced to Mark's dad mid way through a collaboration of the double bass and piano that 'there is nothing better than a man with a large instrument. The bigger the better.' I have never seen someone blush such a shade of scarlet as she did when she realised what she had said.The others had seen the band before, and felt that this gig was lacking in comparison. I was kind of glad it was my first time to see them because I got completely caught up in the magic and the music.
There were a few unexpected moments in the gig. Mark managed to drop his drink and the liquid hit Caoimhe in the eyeball, and drown the shirt of Danny who was standing in front of him. As he took off his shirt to wring it dry, he dropped his beer. It landed with such a plonk that about 20 people turned around to him standing there with his shirt off, at one of the quietest, moments of the concert. I tried to keep my laughter in but all I could hear was Mark's Da say 'Taps aff then', which just set me off. It reminded me of being at mass on a Sunday morning when you thought of something funny and couldn't laugh, but your shoulders gave you away.
As Caoimhe had predicted, Mark ended up coming back to her house with us where we opened up a couple of bottles of wine. (Not a wise idea, that wine). Caoimhe had offered to make my pal Tony breakfast at 8am before he went to the airport (turns out they are neighbours), but as you can imagine, as Mark had predicted, that didn't happen either. Sorry Tony. The following morning was bizarre. As he was plonked into the spare room with me, I was treated to Mark's rendition of the top 100 hymns according on Youtube while I was trying to sleep through my hangover. When hunger hit I went to wake Caoimhe who was also a little under the weather. She followed my back in to the spare room, hoisted herself on the bed and next thing we know the bed has collapsed and my foot is wedged between her arse and the bed frame. When we retold this story to Paddy (omitting that there had also been a Mark on the bed) his response was 'sure there was enough weight on it before she ever sat on it.' Thank you Da for the ego boost!
Caoimhe and I discovered that we have the same hangover cure (Noreen, I swear I did not teach her this when I was babysitting), mash, gravy and breaded chicken. She is more nuggets, I am more chicken supreme but I guess that is an age thing. Anyhoo our hunt for food let us to a wetherspoons. It wasn't great but a gourmet meal would have been wasted on us. Eventually we went into town to find Mark's intended room mate Jamie (who was busy lighting candles for us in a church he found), and a couple of Guinness and many stories about the fairies later, we were ready to get going back to Scotland. I came away for the trip very tired, and very sore but very content. I laughed so much over such a short space of time, proper laughter too. It was so great to spend some time with Caoimhe though there is a handful of Scotsmen who are insisting she comes to Glasgow and not Aberdeen for her next visit north!
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