Atoning for my sins!

 How are you feeling today? Great, I hope. Me, well lets just say that the worlds oldest man is João Marinho Neto  who is 112 and right now, I feel about ten years older than him. Everything that could possibly ache is aching, my ankle, knees, back, shoulders, neck and even my wrist (which I broke when I was playing football when I was 22).I also feel rather ill. Oddly enough though, yesterday, I felt about 23 years old and made the mistake of acting like it. So you could say, it is all my own fault. Yesterday was my band, The False Dots 46th Birthday party at The Dublin Castle. It was an absolute blast. For about an hour, I was jumping around like a looney. I also had perhaps one of two sherbets more than was sensible, not totally wild as in the good old days of the Dots, but when you start at 2pm, and don't finish until 8pm (we went for food and more drinks with friends after the show), it is a long day. 

I woke up in the night with both my knees hurting, as they used to after I played 5-a-side football and I changed my plan to go to the gym. If truth be told, I'd be quite happy to go to bed right now (it's 6.30pm), but we've got to walk the dogs etc and I've learned that all that happens is you wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep if you retire too early. The human body is an amazing thing. How can your mind trick your body into shedding 40 years of wear and tear, and then shovel it all back on with interest the next day? 

What surprises me most, is just how good our band has become in the last two years. I've always loved playing, always enjoyed being in a band, always been excited to play gigs and always enjoyed the comradeship of the setup. The difference over the last two years, and I put this squarely down to the addition of Tom Hammond on Trumpet, is that we make a sound that truly excites a crowd. When you are a non chart band, playing the Dublin Castle, I think it is some mean achievement to suddenly find the crowd launch spontaneously into a Conga! I even had knickers thrown at me, a real first for the band! We don't take it too seriously, but when you see all that going on, it is the best feeling in the world for a musician!

Today I am atoning for the sin of having far too much fun yesterday. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone! 

Please note, I fell asleep so am posting this on Tuesday morning! Here's a short clip from the gig. This is Wrong, which was the first song the False Dots played at our first ever rehearsal in 1979, and we've never played publicly before! Tom sings it. A bit of a blast from the past, proper punk rock.