Buns2025: Day 11 – Dublin
Soundtrack: “To here knows when”, My Bloody Valentine
Well I kinda managed to take it easy today. Started off with breakfast near the banks of the Liffey at the Irish Potato Cake Company, who even though they were flat out (apparently South African rugby fans like potato cakes, who knew) put together a decent full Irish breakfast. Potato cakes filled with beef and bacon and cheese, black pudding, grey/white pudding, fried egg, soda bread, beans, accompanied by a pot of strong tea. Not bad indeed. While I’m yet to sample a full Northern Irish breakfast, I will say that I think across the British Isles the full Scottish is the winner, with their black pudding and potato bread it just nudges ahead of the others. I think it’s a lot to do with the black pudding, nothing beats the wonderful stuff they make in Stornaway: it’s more than just a boudin noir, it has a texture that is a step up from the regular stuff.
After eating my fill (and almost leaving my bag behind — the poor chappie jogged half a block to catch up and let me know my bag was still in the cafe) I headed to the Temple Bar Whiskey shop in the hope of picking up a bottle for a present. (FYI the Scots call their stuff whisky, while the Irish can add the “e” if they feel like it.) They have an okay range, and some Dingle single batch whiskey that looked to be a reasonable price. Eventually managed to get the sice person to get the bottle down, I was looking at the 2nd batch, but the first bottle he gave me was the 4th. Eventually found a bottle of the second batch, then the fun began. This was priced at 150 euro on the shelf, but when he scanned the bottle tube it came up as 3,000 euro. Scanning the bottle came up at 300 euro. An additional person was called in, who had a look, then went off to talk to someone. I waited, and the pub band broke into an Irish folks version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”. They came back and informed me that this whiskey was 150 euro per shot, apparently. Now I don’t mind being generous to a point, but I’m not looking to gift anyone a $5,000+ bottle of whiskey (especially when I’ve since found a place in Dublin listing it online for 200 euro). Instead I headed south to the Celtic Whiskey Shop, where I’m sure I visited on my last time in Dublin, to see what they had. What they had was a good selection, excellent service, a couple of tastings, and I came away with a gift within budget and a wish I had more luggage space.
I also popped into an antiquarian bookshop that had lots of old first editions and other wonderful books that were sadly out of my price range. However while I was there someone else came in looking for a book called “Chairman of the Board”, though it might have been “German of the Board”, as there doesn’t appear to be any difference with an Irish accent, and the proprietor did as twice the title to be sure.
Lunch was next door at a literary pub, apparently James Joyce or someone like that ate there in the past. I had the beef and Guinness pie, working through all the Irish standard recipes here, with a pint of Murphy’s stout. My mission, in fact everyone who comes to Ireland, should make an attempt to try as many different stouts as possible — once you’ve done that you can go back to Guinness if you wish, but at least be able to say you’ve tried others. Murphy’s is similar to Guinness, creamy, somewhat roasty, with a hint of chocolate. Very drinkable. The pie was okay, once I ate through the dense layer of potato and got to the filling.
An email gave me the lowdown on the times for tonight’s gig, with support starting around 8pm and MBV on after 9pm. This meant I could head back to the hotel and get plenty of rest, after a chemist visit. For all the EU etc, Ireland still lets ordinary folk buy cold and flu tablets with psuedoephidrine over the counter, no ID, no license, no register, nothing. To be honest, I’ve avoided these in Australia for the last few years due to occasional associated chest palpitations, so while I asked if they had any alternatives without there was nothing. So woohoo bring it on, who doesn’t love an over-the-counter buzz. And no, I’m not planning on loading up my case with Irish cold and flu tablets to bring back. You’re not going to see me starring in an episode of some customs teevee show over a case of irish sudafed.
My body definitely liked the rest, and the extra drugs, so I was ready for the evening. Dinner was a little bar on the way to 3Arena, I managed to snag a table, and while they only had burgers, in the name of Buns2025 I ordered one. It was decent, definitely in the top 50% of how burgers should be, nice and meaty, not too messy, and the bun was okay (none of this brioche stuff). I do feel a bit let down with their choice of USian “cheese”, I mean there must be a bunch of local cheeses that could be used. Paired it with the Beamish stout, which for me is a little better than Guinness, it has a bit more depth of flavour, slightly less heavy, and is less reliant on the nitrogen to smooth everything out. Guinness is a wonderful creamy stout, but it’s brewed to need the nitrogen delivery to make it that way, while I feel Beamish delivers regardless of the serving gas.
3Arena was a flat 30 minute walk from my hotel, I could have looked at the trams but there were weird closures and things I didn’t quite understand, so away I walked, along with many others. The arena capacity is around 13,000 and the gig was sold out. I managed to score a merch t-shirt in a size that fit — why is it every band that has a following among us “older” gen-x folks never have enough XL t-shirts. I could see a bunch of folks ahead of me leave the queue disappointed, while I happily bit the bullet and went 2XL as I prefer my t-shirts to be a bit loose. But gen-x bands, please, remember your fan base aren’t the skinny underfed outcasts of the early 1990s, we’re now employed, eating well, and can afford to come to gigs, all we need are more XL t-shirts.
I know very little about the support act, Maria Sommerville and band, but they were definitely appropriate for the evening, a mix of shoegaze guitars, a drummer using a violin bow on the cymbals, and a lot of fuzz and feedback.
My Bloody Valentine are never going to gain accolades for their stage presence. I likely registered more steps getting from the merch stand to my seat in the seventh row than the entire band did all night. But no one was there to see acrobatics, they were there for the sonic onslaught mbv deliver, layers of guitars, pounding drums, in the midst of which can be found subtle melodies. There are as many layers to their songs as there are in croissants. The band aren’t there to talk, aside from a brief dedication to Mani, the recently deceased Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist, and a couple of thank yous, they just played track after track. Around 1 hour and 50 minutes, 19 songs, we were warned that the performance would be loud and it was; it might not have registered on the Richter scale like a recent AC/DC show, but it was loud enough that I could feel the sound waves pushing the air.
The finish was a little abrupt, no encore, but was we left the venue sound was playing “Waterfall” by the Stone Roses, which was very touching. Thirteen thousand strong, bound by the promise of tinnitus in out near future, we filtered out into Dublin’s night.
Irish gig attendees are no better than attendees elsewhere. There were numerous times at mbv where other folks on the row felt the need to get up and go for beer, though at least they managed to time it so they’d leave at the end of a song and return at the end of the next song. And last night at 808 State there was one guy near me who just did not shut up, for the entire 2 hours he flapped his gums. I get that there’s the whole Irish thing about kissing the Blarney stone and getting the gift of the gab, but this guy either fellated it or ended up with rock splinters in his rectum, I swear. Use gifts only as directed, people.
Dublin seems to have a lack of late night 7eleven type stores, or at least in the area near my hotel. I went looking for anywhere to just grab a late night bottle of water and just browse what local random snacks are like here, but aside from kebab shops, there seemed to be nothing. Fortunately it seems that, like Paris, the tap water is drinkable without undesirable explosive consequences, though after years of travel through countries where this isn’t the case, I do still feel reluctant to fill a glass straight from the tap.
I’ve booked an early train to Cork tomorrow, so headed back to the hotel, even though just across the road the USian band Wheatus were also playing, while nearby Amanda Tori Meating was performing (she was scheduled to end around the same time mbv stopped playing, but drag time schedules know no limits so she might have still been there). Tomorrow is early train, Cork, Midelton Whiskey.
