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June 05, 2005

Luas, Salad and Liam

Friday 1st October

Commuters, behold the LUAS Red Line. Instead of pushing and shoving your way onto the 90 bus outside Hueston Station you now have the option of, eh, pushing and shoving your way onto the LUAS. Much like the opening of the Green Line out to Sandyford, the LUAS stop outside Hueston was bustling with purple jacket wearing LUAS personnel handing out LUAS leaflets. I edged my way to the front of the platform eager to get a seat. Once the tram arrived I realised I wouldn’t be getting a seat. Nor in fact would any of us on the platform as the tram was jam-packed. Were talking Strawberry Jam here. Everyone and their relatives had crammed on in an effort to test it out without having to pay for it. Exactly what I was doing. I managed to squeeze on eventually and off we went. As I said before when I was testing out (for free again) the Sandyford LUAS line, the one thing that strikes me about the LUAS is its speed. It positively zips along. The Red Line thankfully stops off right outside the Jervis Street Shopping Centre where I was headed.

I was in search of a camera tripod for my documentary on $chmackey and the Salads, my ultra-cool house band (as if you didn’t know). They were playing later that day in the Battle of the Bands in the Riverbank Arts Centre. I headed straight for Argos. They sell everything. Tripods included. After getting my receipt with my product collection number on it I went over and stood with the rest of the shoppers waiting for their goods. There was only one woman working behind the counter and she looked, to say the least agitated. “Number 49,” she called out. No one moved. “Number 49,” she said again, though this time a little louder. “Number 49!” she repeated. “BINGO!” shouted a man at the back. She gave him a dirty look as the rest of the customers chuckled quietly.

As it turned out the tripod wasn’t as large as I had thought which was perfect. The last thing I needed was to carry a big box around with me. I made my way back to O’Connell Bridge, got impatient waiting for the 90 bus so got a taxi instead and eventually arrived in Hueston where I caught the 3.30pm Arrow back to tropical Newbridge. The Battle of the Bands was on at 8pm but since me and Jeff Keogh (camera man # 2) wanted to get some backstage footage for our documentary we headed down at 7pm. On our way, we bumped into the Salad band members outside Central Grill on Main Street and headed down to the Arts Centre. Being cult columnists and rock stars we went in the back way to check out the dressing rooms. As 8pm loomed I got up on the balcony where I would be doing my filming. Jeff was in the front row to get an up close and personal angle. The balcony seemed to be flooded with people but Peter Hussey, organiser of the event, was soon announcing that the balcony was only for band members and, upon seeing me, journalist. After the first four bands, $chmackey and the Salads made their way on stage. They kicked off with “Chicks Dig Salads” in which lead vocalist, $chmackey threw out a thong into the screaming audience. This was followed by “My Little Paradise” and the classic Salad song “I’m Mat Dillon (Get outta my way!)” They ended on the defining Salad song – “The Star Wars Rap” featuring the immortal lines “Rolled into the club saw this droid she was tight / I took her to my crib, made her say $chmackey all night” The audience gave a rapturous applause and (semi) standing ovation as the Salads stolled off, cool as cucumbers. (Geddit!?!) Need less to say they made it into the final taking place later this month. The only thing now is to wait for the Salads to come up with my columns theme tune. “Cruising in the Arrow, chillin’ on the bus / He’s waiting for the LUAS getting’ ready to cus / standing on the platform, the competition starts to flee / hold onto your hats cause its Liam Geraghty”

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:50 PM