Dun Uaine (Wayne’s Fort) – US Tour 2010

The following day, we make for Fort Wayne where we’re playing Come2Go, a very well-equipped, flashy space in downtown Fort Wayne.  Brad looks after us here and when I say that he looks after us, I mean, he’s the most generous fella you could ever meet.  The venue is huge, and they have a guy making the most amazing coffees there.  Honestly, after the weird motels/truckstops/etc that we seem to live out of, good coffee is the manna.  (Although I’m currently addicted to chai).

The show goes really well and all in all it’s a fantastic experience before another full house.  After my set I was pestered by some insane kid hepped up on fizzy drinks or something for the whole night.  I didn’t throttle him, much as I would’ve liked to, so I’m pleased that my patience won out in the end.

The Grotto do some recording while they’re in Fort Wayne, so myself and my friend Katie from Bay City wandered around the town a little.  One thing that struck me was the number of churches in the area around our hotel.  I’ve never thought about world records for this. I know there are towns in Ireland that boast a huge number of pubs on one street or in one town, but I swear, Fort Wayne must challenge when it comes to the number of churches in the downtown area – many of them are the same denomination, but a different division.  How to describe that?  Anyway, many, many churches!  [Having checked this out, Jamaica apparently has the most churches per square mile in the world.]

We also have the pleasure of enjoying our first full-on music session with American musicians over here.  We’ve had nights where myself and the Grotto initiate a session in a pub somewhere, but it was cool to be welcomed in and join a session as outsiders for once.  The night’s a good one, punctuated with double-bass, snare drum, tenor guitar, nashville guitar (same as regular guitar but tuned very high with steel strings), mandolin, and regular standard tuning guitar.  ’twas really good fun.  Some great moments, and some awful ones too – but sure that’s the beauty of a session!  You never know what you’re going to get.

On our last night, we all curled up and watched “Zombieland” in the hotel.  If you haven’t seen it – do so!  It’s quite enjoyable if you like nonsense zombie movies.  Bill Murray has a show-stealing cameo in it, which has become a habit for him.