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So it's the evening before my first trip to Ireland, to play 5 gigs over 4 days in a variety of venues in County Wexford and County Clare.
I'll be travelling as a foot passenger on the Pembroke to Rosslare ferry, JR (John Robert of the Bullfrog Blues / Barking Spider Music fame) will be picking me up on the other side and kindly driving me from venue to venue and providing PA. In fact it's JR who has sorted out the entire tour for me, so a big thanks to him for that!
As I'm travelling as a foot passenger I've had a bit of dilemma over just what I can and can't take, I wanted to take both acoustic and electric guitars, stomp box and line 6 preamp, but I only have two hands!
So yesterday I built myself a mini stomp box out of an old wooden printen box (left over from the Walker Broad tour of Aachen in 2013!) ans some plastic foam.
Today I dumped all the junk out of my music gear bag ( a job that needed doing anyway as it gets heavier every gig it seems!) Found the shoulder strap at the back of the cupboard and filled it with clothes, microphones, guitar leads, the new stompbox, box of CDs etc. With that on my should I have a hand each for the Les Paul and the Matthew Carter Acoustic. the only thing I might not have space for is this laptop I'm typing on now, so this could be a short tour blog!
I'm due at the ferry for 14:00 tomorrow, which should be plenty of time but am a little anxious about traffic as last time I went to wales it took me 7 hours to get to Cardiff let alone Pembroke Dock! That was particularly bad traffic but still I think I'm going to leave silly early tomorrow! I'd rather sit around board at the ferry terminal than be stressed out in a queue to get over the Severn bridge!
Really looking forward to visiting a new country with my guitar in hand, I'm assured by all I'll have great time and I quite believe them.
Hopefully I'll work out a way to take the laptop so I can keep you all posted on my adventures...