IT’S AN ESSEX THING:

A long time since we’ve played here in Dublin, why, god only knows.
This is another of our great home-from-homes, a gathering place for
joyous celebration, the streets fizz with an energy that makes me
feel good. Fell out the bus this morning & across the road to the
Hilton gym for a shower & a natter, getting naked with the locals.
Pick up the sunday papers, grab a porridge & tea. No time for poetry
today running straight to stage & soundcheck – rubbish pickers dance
in the heat of an intensely hot summer morning. We chase an illusive
crackle on the mic, my in-ears freak out, pumping hi-velocity
malfunction direct into my head bone – we laugh. Drift back to the
bus & catch a ride across town to catch up with old friends at the
sea-side. the warmth of the Irish tribe welcomes me in, wraps
around me, feeds me, warms me on it’s love rotisserie.
Ride back across town, shake hands in the back seat of something
sharp & black, air-con cooling the savage brow of a cross town jam.
In the trough the gates, the wave, the smile, the code remembered
for a bus & back through the rabbit hole where the kettle’s always
on in the Underworld.

(K)