Jayzuz, I’m wrecked. Hectic weekend but deadly, deadly time had. After Cork last weekend it was time for the Secret Wars mini tour to hit Galway and Limerick. Which we did, and then they hit us back, and after a brief tussle we ended up apologizing to each other and insisting on buying this round, etc.
So Friday evening Richie !Kaboogie and myself landed into Galway. The last time I was there (for an A4 Sounds group show in 126), I wasn’t about in the hours of light, so strolling down Shop Street in the sunshine was the biz. After checking out the venue , Kelly’s Bar, our hosts treated us to some top notch grub (moroccan lamb curry in my face!) before soundchecking (thanks for the shiny new mixer Mac!). A few pints of stout in the sun after and we were all set for the evening.

Le Setup
I thought Cork was great last weekend, mainly because people got down from very early on and got stuck in, but Kelly’s was RAM after being open for a half hour (I found out later that they had to close the doors at 11.30 it was so packed!). Either this is down to tour manager Andy’s excellent promotion skills (oh yeah) or maybe there’s just way more of a buzz about Secret Wars or street art in general. Anyways, deadly crowd, and fair play to all of ye for giving it socks all night! Once Jay had introduced the artists and the battle commenced, there was some SERIOUS grinding going on up at the front of the crowd, Richie and me laid out a tuff selection of dancehall, baltimore and moombahton at the start, getting into more funky bashment and breaks styles after Reeps One’s savage set after the battle.

Reeps One
These battles are a great oppurtunity for practicing the skills, it’s not often we get to play back to back for four hours, so keeping a crowd happy and changing styles up an interesting challenge, kinda like making mussels stuffed with spicy rice. Kind of.

Richie !Kaboogie
But what of the art? Well, Friz and Danleo of team Dublin knocked out a rather tasty piece, with the tagline “Got more souls than a sock with a hole”, and the Galway lads did up “Ridin the Bucfasht monster”, check ’em below:

Dublin - Got more Soul than a Sick with a Hole

Galway - Ridin the Buckfasht Monster

Galway heads get down!
We got to lash it out a bit more after the battle finished, heaps of dubstep, grime, hardcore, and we got to play some jungle at the end too. I dropped Swindle’s ‘Airmiles’ at one point, resulting in a mini-chorus line at the front shaking to the ground with the descending riff, brilliant! Nicely done Galway!
Sore heads a plenty the next day, but the buzz of the previous night took the sharp edges off. We headed down to Limerick next, a city that I haven’t been to in 15 years or something, which is pretty ridiculous really, but I don’t think I’m alone as regards getting out of Dublin and seeing OTHER PLACES. This mini-tour thing we’re doing has definately opened my eyes a bit more regards what’s going on in other cities, and the general reception and crowd enthusiasm everywhere we go makes me feel all squidgey inside. Which is a good thing, so gimme more gigs, yeah? I was chatting with 2bit about this before, ha made the point that the whole UK scene that sprung up around rave, that some refer to as the ‘hardcore continuum‘, developed due to people getting out of London, Sheffield, Bristol etc and playing in the smaller towns on a pretty frequent basis. Or else just doing a lot of gig swaps between crews from opposite ends of the country. After heading to places like Cork, Limerick or Galway, and down to the nature of the sort of events we’re doing, you get a good glimpse at the scene that’s bubbling away there. I’d love to see more co-operation and the likes around the country (not that that’s not happening already mind), it helps build up the whole scene and keeps things fresh. There’s SOOOO much talent in this country, be it music, street art, whatever. It’s a great feeling for people to be playing/painting and appreciated away from home, and hopefully seeing something like a Secret Wars battle might be an extra pinch of inspiration for the audience (or just a good night’s entertainment!).
Anyway, back to Limerick. Baker Place was the night’s venue, and it had a lovely underground vibe off it (because it was underground) with some deadly artwork covering almost every possible square inch of wall space. Plus it had the most solid turntable setup I’ve seen in a long while:

Danleo and myself were up against a pair of local tattoo artists, so we decided to do a piece themed around Big Bird from Sesame Street tattooing a donkey’s bum, with Kermit the Frog looking on in barely-controlled pleasure, called it ‘Tattoo My Ass”. High-concept art, brother.

The limerick lads did a fine job, busting out a pretty impressive piece, chock full of tasty tattoo-style illustration.

This one was pretty full on. The place was a sweatbox and ink mixed with stout on the floor to provide a nice squealch underfoot. Richie !K was hoofing out a badman selection too to add to the tension, and after 90 minutes it was voting time.
Ended up 2-1 to Limerick, which follows the pattern of the last two battles scorewise, but I don’t think anyone expected a bunch of Dublin boyos to win over a Limerick crowd! Or judges who vote for the home team this way:

Twas deadly craic after the battle, Reeps One killed it with an INSANE set, people were coming up to see if the sounds were actually coming from the decks or whatever, pretty surprised that one dude with a mic can smash the place up so much!
Like the night before, we played some heavier stuff for the last hour of the night, including some Squires dubs I got a while back that totally wrecked the gaff, until we were kindly asked to stop due to the presence of local law enforcement officials.

Before heading back to the hotel, got to grab a few shots of some graf at the taxi rank, I’m pretty sure some of the artists here have done stuff in the Cork car park I posted about here, so if anyone wants to confirm or deny this please work away.
UPDATE: Pieces are by SX, RASK and SMASH137, big thanks to Nick for that!



So, the Secret Wars venture into the South and West is over, but we’ll be doing a BIG session next Friday in Dublin’s Twisted Pepper. Details an ting on the way. Big up to Dan, Friz, Richie, Andy, Jay, Paul, Reeps, Rob and the good people of Galway and Limerick!!!