ONE ROAD FOR THE
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“Everybody loves an aul tour story.” New Pagans’ drummer Conor McAuley recounts what gave him the touring bug.
Ahh tour stories. If anyone in this band has tour stories it’s Cahir! Charlene our manager too, actually. Everybody loves an aul tour story. I recommend checking out Fighting With Wire tour diaries for a good laugh. Mine are all pretty tame in comparison, to be honest. I mean there’s the usual pish and boke stories that everyone has. Like this one time I fell asleep in the driver’s seat of the tour bus on the very first night. It was the only seat that wasn’t occupied by completely steamin’ strangers, naturally. On my way to “bed” I found a bottle of rum in one of the many hidden cupboards in what used to be a school bus or something (to paint the picture, they had only just stripped a caravan and rebuilt it inside this bus). We were two bands doing shows around Ireland. 15 people packed into an uninsured library bus, hurtling at the speed of light around the back-arse of nowhere. All you could hear was ‘clink-clinkclink’. That tour did the damage. I’ve had a thirst ever since.
But anyway, I’m straying. I’ll cut to the chase. There were around 60 people partying in this bus after the gig, and only one place left to sleep. The driver’s seat. First night of tour. What happened was. Well, let’s just say it was fairly messy. Yeah…actually that’s all I’ll say on that one. But my touring life has settled now, and I get completely bombed less and less. I do enjoy the odd shindig though. Some highlights: partying in a bank vault in San Boi, drinking Slovakian poitín at a traditional folk-dance festival in Holland (turned out it was a front for pretty heavy mushroom trips), all-nighters, a few lost nights on Rumple Minze - many a hairy night in the States. But the thing I love most about touring, is the people you meet. I would be a talker. I’ll chat to anyone. People are quite chatty to strangers they’ve only just met. You meet some incredible people kicking around this planet, if you’re open enough. 27
