‘Slane’ is on today.
I’m not going, unlike the rest of the country. I’ve a big application form to get stuck
into. Although it’s for a music project,
that doesn’t sound like a rock-and-rock excuse. If I was in my Mam’s in Meath, there’s a
good chance that I’d get an itch and try to find a ticket. But the rain falling against my window in Kildare,
dampens any such notions, even though I was a big Guns N’ Roses fan as a
kid. ‘Appetite for Destruction’ was one
of the first albums that I got on tape.
My lovely nordie aunt Moira bought it for me. Between my mother and my aunt, they got
confused with my request and it appears that Moira asked the long-haired young
fella in the record shop for ‘’Guns ‘N’ Daisies.’’ Oh, how they laughed.
Just knowing that Slane is on, fills me with nostalgia. The castle set in the big field that doubles
as a natural amphitheatre, along the River Boyne. This pretty little village transformed for just one day.
It’s my aunt Olive, my father’s sister, in the ‘old kitchen’,
in 1985 on her way to see Bruce Springsteen.
She’s wearing a bright blue jumpsuit, as only she could, with her long
blonde hair. Eleven-year-old me sits
quietly and admires her style. As she stands
there with her hands in her pockets, laughing, she is unaware that I am watching. I don’t have the word for it then, but she
looks so confident. None of us in the knowledge then that she
would die so young and that Moira to follow just months later - The screech from
my mother as I share the news from the phone call, standing in the middle of
the farm yard.
It’s Lord Henry Mount
Charles on the Late Late Show. He sounds
too posh to live just the road from our house.
He takes all of the hob-nobbing with music royalty in his stride.
Impeccably dressed, but wearing odd socks.
On the telly.
Imagine.
It’s seeing his distress on TV after the 1991 fire at the
Castle.
It’s the post fire Guns N’Roses concert in Slane that I go
to with my new-on-the-scene boyfriend. He’s a biker and musician, a beautiful Jesus
lookalike, with better hair than me. He’s
more of a heavy metal fan and tuts at the idea of being here. It’s the first time I took a day off from my
Saturday job and my boss isn’t best pleased. The sun beats down and I get spectacularly
sunburned, but only down one side of my face – nowhere to hide in this big
field. We meet Jesus’s friends, one more
uber-cool than the next, who similarly tut about being here. I am totally morto at my tomato face, but the
bikers seem too cool to notice. The
skin on my face peels for weeks afterwards.
Any wonder then, that I turn into the ‘Have you got your sun screen on?’
Mammy type figure at other concerts I’ve been too, slathering unsuspecting young
lads in cream.
I eventually make it back to Slane for Bon Jovi in 2013,
only because my friend Maria gives me two tickets. Conveniently, my cousins who are coach
operators, are bringing bus loads to the concert. The bus is full of neighbours and relations. I hate queueing at concerts for a drink, so
decide to do my drinking before we get inside the grounds. Seems like everyone else has the same
idea. The Nurse’s bra is full of
silicone-like pouches, substituting the intended medical liquid with
alcohol. I admire her Festival Fitness,
as well as her impressive cleavage.
We
get inside the gates and my cousin who had said ‘Stay with me Lucy and you will
be grand’, disappears within minutes and turns up the following day missing his
jacket. Truth be told, the concert is
all a bit blurry, but maybe that’s how best to watch one of your childhood
heart throbs after all these years. Jon
Bon is looking well all the same, but the music is pure cheese. I’m tutting but singing along … wooo…. Ooooh ….
Livin’ on a pray ……. yer….
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