Following that we travelled to Athens, Georgia where we played in another huge High School Auditorium.....


It was gas, they invited the soloists to meet some music students before the show. It was hilarious we all got dressed up and proceeded to the cafeteria where we all introduced one by one and fed with........wait for it.....

Corned Beef and Spuds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was so funny, all of us in our D.J.'s the women of Ireland group all dressed to kill, and Colman Pearce in his Tails eating Corned Beef!




The first thing that they learned about Dublin was that it is the most expensive city in the world!


Opposite the hotel was the first proper bar we've found....here's the post gig drinks/food with all the Bulgarians who come out with us. Most of em have good english but we're helping them improve, and we're learning a bit of Bulgarian too!!!! John Walsh will be fluent by the end of the tour I reckon!!! And I found a space invader game like the one in Connollys in Leap, West Cork......Savage!!!












The next day we'd a day off and took into Athens which is a lovely little town, we had lunch and just wandered about until of course the rowdy Irish has to get up to mischief!!!The local football team are nicknamed 'The Dawgs' which is gas as it's the way gav, myself frost and mick Marshall describe something that's cool...as in '...that gig was the DAWGS biy....'
These metal 'Dawgs' are all over Athens so, I had to get on for a bit o craic!!!!!

The following 3 days we really found out all about the grueling life touring. 8-am bus...6hrs travel...arrive at hotel check in.....barely have time for a shower....go to rehearsal...do gig...return to hotel...sleep...same again next day.

It is incredibly tiring, and everyone was feeling exhausted.....then you arrive at somewhere that knocks you off your feet!!!!

Lexington, Kentucky....totally snowed in and iced over. The Irish concert was a knockout and I'm really getting the hang of the compereing. Also the show is running much slicker even though there's a ton of music to get through!!!

Today we're travelling to Asheville, North Carolina!!!! Famous place where the RTECO were 10 years ago.

enjoy the pictures.

See ye soon.

next after our day off was Vero beach in Florida and we played a classical programme in a lovely church out in the middle of nowhere. Peter Tuite played the Beethoven concerto and we played Brahms 2nd symphony to a standing ovation!!

Here's Peter in rehearsal doing his thing! He really is a phenomenal musician, his playing is effortless, and he is great craic on the bus too.





One of the Horn players warming up...

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The hotel we were supposed to be staying at was a real dump so the Columbia rep got another place sorted real quick and it was fantastic, my room was bigger than our first apartment!!!!! Right overlooking the beach, so after our 2nd celtic night we all piled back to my room for a small party. Great craic.


Following that we moved to West Palm beach to the Kravis centre for the arts. WOW what a theatre!!!! Here it is.


At this concert I had to fill in for Colman for a pre-concert lecture. That was a real nerve wrecker....I had very little time to do any prep. so I winged it and it went well, really well. I had my ipod plugged in so I was able to play a few excerpts for the crowd. THere was about 300 at it!!!









I then got to rip into my brand new 22 inch crash cymbals for the last movement of Tchaik 4!!!! WOW What a huge sound they make.
After that, which was the first time I've ever done this on tour, we drove 100 miles south to Stuart, Florida to do the same programme again!!!!! The theatre was tiny and owned by.....Irving Berlin''s grandson!
The loading area was so small the basses had to take their instruments out of the cases outside on the street!!!!








Rest day followed this in Sarasota and it just so happened that Munster were playing Sale in the Heineken cup. So, I got the address of a bar that was showing the match and I tore off on my own, complete with Munster jersey to a bar called MacGanns. There I met a fella from Dublin named Niall........

I didn't put my hand in my pocket all day and I had a ball. Twas actually great to head off on my own away from the tour and the stresses of the past 2 weeks.





Next we headed for Atlanta, a mere 10 hours on the bus!!!! Thankfully the craic and people on the bus are fantastic so, it's no bother. We got a lot of housekeeping work done, emailing venues, calling sound techs etc and organising tickets. Once all the work was done frankie, myself and a few of the gang got a few beers/sandwiches and started on the jokes!!! What a panic we had. On arrival in Atlanta we found a place across the street that did fabulous food.
Here's a few shots for ya.................

Atlanta was great as it was the first hotel we stayed in that was actually in the city centre. They had a huge parade in honour of Barack Obama's inauguration.
Here's a few shots from the Lucas theatre in Savannah with all the percussion set up and the sound equipment for the Irish spectacular......


Here's a few shots I forgot to add earlier of all the Irish soloists heading for a crab restaurant in Naples, Florida. What a gorgeous place.....










Ad for free beer...who says the Americans have no sense of humour!!!!!







Dave 'Piano man' Browne with crab claw!!!









I especially love this shot of Peter Tuite and Frankie Gavin discussing music and gigs etc...fantastic!









And of course all the soloists from the number 1 bus!!!!








Sorry, I've been swamped so the best thing is to skip on to the last few days. We moved on Saturday to Augusta Georgia the home of the famous U.S. open. I actually had a night off!!!! I went off for a stroll to the golf course but couldn't get within 1 mile of it for all the fences, I did find a beautiful walk though right at sunset. Over the river is South Carolina, different time zone and everything!!! The houses were amazing and right on the riverfront was this amphitheatre......





















The next gig was in Anniston High School, honestly the hall there was absolutely fantastic...for a high school in the middle of nowhere.









After the concert there was a fantastic reception put on for us by the Irish commuinity. The food was top notch, no burgers or chicken wings in sight here. Only the very best Italian food with to-die-for desserts!!!! Here are some of the soloists all dolled up eatin de grub!!!!

Our last gig 2 days ago was by far the best of all so far. Peter absolutely nailed the Shostakovich and the Tchaikovsky was amazing. One of the best concerts I've ever played in!!!




Talk to ye soon!!!!

Now we're in Savannah

Following a few hectic days rehearsal in Sofia we had a mammoth flight over to Orlando, where the following day we had our first concert.

Well we're here and it's all started and we're really rockin now. I'm going to start this blog from last week and see how it goes....
Happy reading!!!!





This is the crystal palace hotel where we stayed in Sofia. It was 15 degrees below zero but funnily didn't feel that cold. The rehearsal place was right across the park so we skated across to it!!!!
Beatiful city in the snow.......