Intro

I thought Glasgow was massive when I first moved here. After going to London for a weekend though, Glasgow is just the perfect size. I can walk from A to B within a day! I really liked it, regardless. It was cool to see but I honestly wouldn’t want to move there. I like being broke but I’d hate it in London!

The Craic

The week leading to my trip, I was having daily mental breakdowns in work. All my work was sloppy and I was politely texting the manager that I was fitting to burn the place down. I even had to have someone in with me on the last day, I was so bad. I think I really needed this trip.

The first month I was in Glasgow, a promotion company in London emailed me about working with me. They must have seen a recording of me at the open mic in Nice N Sleazy on Instagram or something. At first I thought it was a scam, I then realized their site was real and their emails were official. They even addressed the email to Crazed. I gave it a chance.

To make sure it wasn’t a scam, I even called my friend Tom Pyne, as he has great knowledge about this music stuff. After a while I was like ‘I guess I’m off to London.’ This was all back in late January and the gig was April 20th so I had time to prepare.

As I was very new to Glasgow, I didn’t know anyone who would come down with me and play guitar. I enjoy the freedom of moving so I like people playing guitar for me. Also, some of my songs are tough to do without a backing singer. I decided I’d chance to see if Darragh, my main man back in Galway, would be up for joining me. Originally I was offered March but I eventually asked the April 21st date instead.

The “Fuck it” Mentality

Delighted to have Darragh joining me, I was set. All I needed was a guitar. Because Ryanair have a history of destroying guitars, we couldn’t bring Darragh’s. But I was like, someone in the United Kingdom must have a spare guitar I could use.

March came along so I had to get on top of this guitar situation. One skill you learn in Galway is how to borrow stuff off people you never talk to. I messaged a few people I knew in Glasgow through the open mics, but they unfortunately didn’t have a spare guitar. Out of desperation, I went around to several guitar shops asking if I could rent a cheap guitar off them for 20 bean. They weren’t too keen on the idea.

Meanwhile, Darragh offered to email a few of the acts playing with us on the night, asking if they would have an acoustic guitar handy. One of the bands got back to us. Their band name was The People. We were saved! You can find their page here!

https://www.facebook.com/MusicByThePeople/

Close enough to the gig date, the venue we were mean’t to be playing in lost it’s licence. I got a call as I was in the gym, killing abs! #abstinence. They were very apologetic and they handled the situation the best they could. The best they could do was change it to the Cavandish Arms Inn, a day earlier. I could make this no problem. The problem was that Darragh was landing in Stanstead at 6.35pm. Doors opened at 7pm, our stage time was still undetermined.

I emailed them asking if they could squeeze us on a gig they had that was on the date we were originally meant to play but this wasn’t possible. They asked me to confirm if I could make it and told me the venue is The Cavandish Arms Inn. At least I knew the location! With no idea what time I was meant to be on stage, I emailed back “I can, yeah”.

So we were basically going in with a ‘fuck it’ attitude. Some would say it’s a very unprofessional attitude to have. Some would be very right. But where there’s a will, there’s a way…..I hoped.

Ten hours To London

After putting everything up to the act of God himself, all that was left was to show our faces. I got the bus directly from Glasgow to London. Leaving at 11.30pm and arriving at 9am, it was a ten hour journey. I posted updates every hour as comments under a status to keep myself entertained.

A lot of that was exaggerated. The trip wasn’t bad at all. I also realized that my travel sickness had gotten a lot better with all the travelling I was doing the past year.

A Wandering Day In The City

After I got off the bus, I had a day to kill in London so I just wandered around doing random shit. Going to cafes, walking to different parts. Turns out it takes way longer to walk from A to B in London than anywhere else I’ve been.

While I was free, I thought I’d take the underground route Darragh was going to take later and time it. While underground looking at a map like it was hieroglyphics, a woman appeared beside me. I asked her to help me find my route. “Like you, I’m not from here.” she replied in her Dublin accent. She helped me figure it out and I was on my way.

I reached the track and a train stopped in front of me. There was a map behind it so  decided to wait until it went so I could be 100% sure I was on the right train. The train took off. I stood in the quiet subway looking at the map across from me.

The woman appeared from the wall behind me. “You could have taken that train, now.” I explained the situation and we started chatting away. She was in London visiting her daughter who was in college here. Her daughter also lived in Galway at one point, so I probably knew her. In the end I successfully timed the route as 25 minutes from Tottenham Hale to Stockwell.

Waiting At The Venue 

As the soundcheck time came closer, I arrived at the venue. There wasn’t a hope in the world of Darragh making the soundcheck but there wasn’t much to soundcheck anyway. A guitar, two vocals. *Receives death threats from sound engineers all over Galway*. All I could do was stall around and hope all transport ran on time.

As I waited for Darragh to get off the plane so I could contact him, I started chatting shite to ur man behind the bar. A few other barmen appeared from the back later. The bar staff there are serious banter. It had been a while since I had had bar staff banter. The weather was unreal that weekend too. It was a couple days before the marathon and nearly thirty degrees. I’d have hated to be running that marathon!

I was notified at this time that the band who were mean’t to be playing before us, dropped out. This didn’t change our stage time I found out after my mini-stroke.

(At this point, Darragh was the blue dot on the white line)

“Bumps In The Road”

A bump in the road appeared. The train was behind schedule by a few minutes. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of an issue but the time we had, literally gave us no time for delay.

Bump in the road number 2. The death of Avicii.

As I was sitting there, patiently waiting, Facebook was filled with status’s saying Avicii died. This was terrible news. He was one of the few artists on the radio that I liked. I told the boys behind the counter. They couldn’t believe it. This took my mind off the potential doom I was facing for five minutes.

I was sitting at a table with the boys in The People talking about London and open mics, trying to get my mind off this stressful predicament. Any more delay and we wouldn’t be able to play the gig. My main worry was that Darragh would have come all the way to London for nothing!

When he reached the station he hopped straight onto the underground, cutting connection for a while. I was lost in Limbo until he came back to the surface. I came up with a backup. I was talking to two great guitar players. I asked them if one of them would be up for playing four chords in a loop for a couple of songs.

All my songs are four chord progressions, so people can play guitar for me no matter where I am. They were up for it at first until they realized they had to meet friends, coming off the tube. Funnily enough we were all simultaneously giving out about not being able to contact people underground. With ten minutes till stage time, I felt the nerves. I then began receiving the messages he sent me while sitting on the underground train.

20:15 – Show Time

“Eta 6 mins”. I waited a couple minutes looking down the road but I couldn’t see Darragh. With two minutes until stage time, 20.15, I went in to soundcheck my vocals and the guitar quickly. Keep in mind, I can’t play guitar.

I was there singing the chorus to my song ‘Dance’. Then I was strumming an e minor chord. The sound engineer asked me to do a proper song. I looked at the door in the quiet corner beside the stage. 20.16, no sign of Darragh. I decided to give it shot. I strummed the e minor chord as I sang the chorus.

As I made a poor attempt to switch to a G. Darragh appeared through the door. Keep in mind, I hadn’t seen him since around St. Stephens Day and I had been in Glasgow on my own since early January. We also hadn’t rehearsed in over 6 months. He hopped onto the stage, gave me a hug and took the guitar off me. “Lets do this!” he shouted.

After a quick soundcheck, we were ready to open doors. The stress was gone. All I had to do was perform. We had lost 5 minutes of our set but we were gonna make the remaining 25 minutes the best that Absent Kelly had ever seen! As the doors opened, the promoter came in with a few performers and their friends. He gave us the thumbs up.

Our first song was my Back In Black/Bog Na Slua mix. Darragh had only learned this the week before so we hadn’t rehearsed it at all! (Bog Na Slua means move the crowd in Irish and I rap my song over the tune of Back In Black) As the ACDC version begins with 8 taps, Darragh made 8 silent strums. For each strum we spoke.

Darragh: “This wont work”

Me: “It will”

“It won’t”

“It will”

“Not a chance”

“It will”

“Try it sure”

“Why not?”

Song: “Right to the left, to the right to the left…..”

There were a few mistakes as we played the song, but we covered them up pretty well, so no one had a clue. The whole set went well. When we came down, people told us they loved it. The crowd wasn’t massive, but I was happy with it. I reckon it was at least 15 or 20 people. I even had a couple of people pay in after hearing me play from outside and wanting to see what the craic was. I made a solid 6 whole pounds! That was a nice bonus. Now all that was left was to chill and watch the other acts.

The Afterparty

The night went great, and Darragh and I had a nice, random night out in London. I hadn’t seen him in months, and we were talking about our next gig in Galway in 12 days. The life of rock stars! We met some great people that night, and I even got offered a spot in the Loud in London festival.

As the night wore on, we just kept chatting away with the people and the bar staff. Darragh and a guy beside him drank a heap, so he was a bit twisted. Then, the guy and his friend got really weird. They started threatening each other and went out back for a “talk.” While this was happening, Darragh ended up talking to some lad from Italy about soccer. I wasn’t really paying attention.

Eventually, Darragh whispered to me, “Crazed, this guy’s insane. That’s our cue to leave!” He bought a round of drinks for everyone, they bought him drinks in return, and we dipped. As we were leaving, the Italian lad started shouting, “Come back to mine!” We kindly declined the offer.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed playing in London. Even though the gigs aren’t massive, it’s amazing to say I’ve gigged outside of Ireland. Unless I give up the music, I wouldn’t mind doing a UK tour with Dead Horse Jive.

I’m excited for this festival coming up and hoping I’ll get something good out of it. I have a knack for turning gigs into more gigs! London’s the kind of place where people get signed, so who knows? Maybe something big is waiting for me. I doubt it, but even just getting recognized for my songwriting would be a dream, and getting paid to write hooks? That’d be amazing. My hooks are what’s gotten me this far, after all. Who knows? It’d be nice to have something—anything—waiting for me at the end of the road.

*2025 Daniel Update*

Looking back at my emails from that time, it turns out I turned down the ‘Live In London’ gig due to struggling to find a guitar. I don’t really remember this, but the email chain is there to prove it. The festival dates also happened to clash with the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, so I was probably too exhausted to fly to London and perform. Funny how much more energy I’ve got now compared to when I was younger! This is the image I found.