Day Seven – August 24th – Edinburgh

Around 500km down in one night… A further 200km to go. Breakfast in a service stop, and three desperate Irish men all glued to laptops with not even a seconds worth of internet going. All we need it for is to get the address of the venue we’re playing tonight and that’s proving to be beyond this wifis capability. Ah, Blind luck will surely help us out… But on the bright side, We have finally reached Scotland. LAND OF THE SCOTS!! This is our home away from home. Our four favourite places to play as a band are Limerick, Cork, Glasgow and Edinburgh! Our good friend (and lovely man) Jon Adam is putting on our show for us. We met him on the first WCIP Scottish tour in February and then again on the tour in April, So this guy is a staple in the WCIP touring regime now. He’s put on our show, very last minute due to an unforseen change of date and what a job he’s done. Great bands, Great crowd, great laugh… All in less than a weeks notice! Jon’s also putting us up for the night, So a quick trip to the offie, and we’re heading for his. Edinburgh is shit for parking, people. We can not find a space for love nor money… except one spot which is ‘permit holders only’ so… what would anyone do in that situation?? OF COURSE… you make your own permit!! So on an A4 sheet, in block capitals we wrote PERMIT. No body would dare clamp us after going to the trouble of getting a permit as awesome as ours!! So, vodka in hand we walk towards town, Pubs, Clubs, Chico Time, Singing In The Rain, Jackass 5, Accents, Getting in fights with red sports cars, Howling banshee Limerick war cries, Projectile Vomiting made to look cool, and Purple Rain… This my friends is a night out in Edinburgh!

Day Eight – August 25th – Glasgow

Jon Adam is the man… He made us breakfast. He made us tea/coffee… He also had to kick us out as he had work at one,… but that was fine by us, I was also in a fantastic mood as I didn’t wake with a headache this morning! Sinus’ be damned! Hayes and I are on our way to the car when an empty tow truck passes… ‘Imagine my car had been on the back of that’ he said, and the both of us had a bit of a chuckle… We turn the corner and there’s our fucking car on the back of another tow truck!!! This can’t be happening again!!! For those of you who don’t know… WCIP got impounded on the last tour to the tune of £300… This was not what we needed. Hayes tears on down to try stop them from stealing his car, I follow suit but the thieves in hi-vis jackets will not ease up. Not only will they not just let us forget this whole mess, or even take the bribe… They then won’t even give us a fucking lift to the impound lot. We don’t know where the hell the place is. So we have a long long long walk into town into Jons workplace to tell him all our trouble and woes… But he does give us a phone number for Robbie Smith. Robbie ‘The Hero’ Smith! We are Henry Fonda this man!! He played with us last night in his band Mr. Dirty (An Edinburgh band. WCIP play Edinburgh more times a year than they do) and went out on the piss with us as well after. Robbie, being the gentleman he is agrees to pick us up from town in a little while to bring us to get our car. Using my free time wisely… I take a trip down the road and pick up a new charger for my macbook in a dodgy shop across the road from the Apple Store (fuck you Steve Jobs…oh wait…) and get a £2.50 tesco meal deal! This day doesn’t seems so bad any more. Robbie picks us up and brings us to get our car back… We have made quite a name for ourselves among the staff inside there as ‘The guys who made their own permit sign’ and the quote of the tour goes to Kieran Hayes for his cool-as-a-breeze rebuttal… ‘I thought it was valid’ … £180 paid and we’re off… And with cries of ‘FREEDOM’ as we leave the impound lot, we head straight for Glasgow. Glasgow is awesome… as is all of Scotland I’m sure… A friend of mine who i’d not seen in 2 and a half years shows up and we have ourselves a nice chat, and a hang out, soundcheck and watch the first band… hand cannon (who have some amazing lyrics)… “you’re fucking yourself in the face” and “Holy Guacamole, you’re my little pony” … Just amazing! We go on, and we do our thang… and we manage to sell a whole lot of CDs. We came out with over half the fine money! Couple that with free food, getting paid and a place to stay tonight… I think we totally made up for the poor start to the day.

Day Nine – August 26th – Glasgow/Edinburgh

It is a little known tradition in the WCIP camp that when in Glasgow… you get an all you can eat Chinese buffet. So we wake up and get to work, trying to find the best one. And i think we found it. 4 HUGE plates each and we are stuffed. Uncomfortably full. Like, I had Spring Rolls, Rice, Noodles, Green Beans and Lentils in some sort of sauce… And that was just one plate!! Doughnuts, Banana Fritters, Ice Cream, Muffins, Fruit… We properly ate a dent in the buffet. Luckily the walk to the car is downhill, so that makes it a bit easier. Still, the full bellies and discomfort doesn’t stop us from acting like assholes on the way back. But, as soon as we sit in to the car, Hayes can feel his stomach turning. it’s a rare sight to see… Kieran Hayes properly full! But he won’t be full for long. Outside the car, He proceeds to get sick and also try do it so that there aren’t a load of cars around, at the time of puking. So thinking he’s saved alot of people from an unpleasant sight he closes the car door only to realise that an entire restaurant of people had been eating their lunch right across from him. I can see a few people mid meal just pushing their plates away in disgust! But alas… To Edinburgh!!! We meet up with all our friends… From Secta Rouge to 2/3s of Vasquez, A few members of Jackie Treehorn and more… And as we’re in Edinburgh, we might as well have a few drinks. Stu from Secta Rouge’s trad band (featuring Jed from Jackie Treehorn) are playing in town so we decided to head to that… but of course you can’t bring Hayes and Me to trad sessions. Well, not unless you want an hour of abrasive, audience abusing trad music! At one point we were doing a trad version of Wait And Bleed. We did The Wild Rover, and god only knows what else… Hayes even lashed out Star Wars on the bag pipes. And for this we got ourselves free drinks, which is always a plus in my book!! Shane decides that he wants to go elsewhere after this pub, so Hayes and I head back to our quarters for the night (i.e the Secta Rouge household) and pan out only to be woken by Shane returning from his adventure at around 6 O Clock tapping on the window! Well, I was sound asleep… It was Hayes who was woken up…