|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
Quarrymen in Krakow Sat 4 June 2011 |
||
|
|
|
|
What a great trip this was and probably our youngest and most enthusiastic audience ever! It seems the Beatles had never played in Poland and we managed to beat Ringo to it by a couple of weeks! Beatles Day in Krakow is a charity event, and this year it was in aid of the “Mam Marzenie" foundation which helps terminally ill children. Krakow is home to a large university and the Beatles Day was organised by a group of students led by Paulina Jendrychowska, who did a fantastic job.
As the Quarrymen were playing the earliest music, we actually started off the evening, and the students were packed ten deep in front of the stage, swaying and clapping to the music, but not only that, they knew all the words of the songs - even to the skiffle numbers! This made it easy for us if we forgot the words, we could just lip-read off the front row! As our guest bass player for the evening we borrowed Zbigniew, the bass player from the Bootels, who did a great job for us. Next on stage were the Bootels themselves, an exciting band from the city of Lodz in Poland, who put their own interpretation on to Beatles numbers and they really got the crowd going as the smoke machines belched out clouds. Last up were Tymon Tymanaski and the Transistors, Poland’s top experimental rock band. Krakow itself is a very beautiful city, with great food and even greater beer! We’ll be back!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quarrymen in Dublin Fri 29 April 2011 |
||
|
This was the Quarrymen’s first visit to Dublin since 1998, and being the Guinness-fuelled bunch that we are, we were planning to enjoy ourselves - and we did!
A couple more radio appearances followed, including NOVA fm which is the Dublin rock station. Then it was off to The Village with promoter Paddy Fogarty to meet our guest bass player, Gavin Fox, whose pedigree includes groups such as Vega 4, Idlewild, Turn and Concerto for Constantine. The gig got going around 8pm with a very imaginative Beatles set by Novastone, followed by a very amusing stage piece writtten by Stephen Kennedy which had been seen at the Edinburgh Fringe and involved an argument between a diehard Lennon fan and a diehard McCartney fan as to who was the greater! The Quarrymen’s set included the usual guest washboard players from the audience, one of whom was Pete Brennan, former president of the Beatles Ireland Fan Club - see photo. Thanks to Damian Smyth for permission to use his fantastic black & white shots. The Quarrymen are already looking forward to their next trip to Ireland!
|
||
Friday morning found us at the radio studio of Newstalk, chatting to Tom Dunne and trying to persuade last minute punters to come to the gig that evening at the Village in central Dublin. Then followed an appearance on Balcony tv which is a very popular on-line station which started in Dublin itself and now has branches all over the world. They were clocking up their 2 millionth viewing so it was a very special day, also for new presenter Muireann who was presenting her very first group - the Quarrymen.