Tom Dunne: Finding refuge in America behind the neon shamrocks
Touring the US often wasn't a very lucrative exercise, so Something Happens gladly played occasional Irish bars. Picture: iStock
Neon shamrocks, an ever-present in Irish American bars. The shamrock represented a lot of what a new emigrant in the USA might like to forget about the old sod, and the fact that it was now neon, a lot of what you’d like to ignore about your new home. But it didn’t work like that, the Neon Shamrock would find you anywhere.
The basic economics of touring the US in the late 1980s or early ‘90s as an indie band were not pretty. US-based bands, like Scream, the one Dave Grohl was briefly a member of before Nirvana, found a way to tour and sell records, but it was a torturous undertaking.
On the plus side you got to be in a band, travel Route 66 and the PCH and play the coolest clubs. On the downside these clubs, although often brandishing world famous names like CBGB’s paid very small fees, generally around the $350 mark. Ten of these over a 12 day period was a ‘tour’. This sounded great, but it was still only $3,500.
That $3,500 was all you had to feed six people and pay petrol costs. It wasn’t enough. You could supplement this with CD and T-shirt sales, but it was still tough. Long drives, bad food and no hotels. If a major label didn’t step in with a checkbook at some point, you might lose the drummer to scurvy.
It was still great fun and there was a kind of ‘indie support community’ that would offer floor space to sleep on and even free meals. For Irish bands to return to Ireland with a tour T-shirt that mentioned shows in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington was very impressive. People back home knew you were now literally ‘going places’.
But the economics of being an Irish band were even worse. You had flight costs and less contacts in the indie support community. There were stories of Irish bands touring the USA and living on Mars bars. Hunger was real. But, being Irish, there was one possible escape.
Almost every large town in America had an Irish bar. You could spot these a mile off due to the presence in their windows of the aforementioned Neon Shamrocks. These bars loved Irish bands. Simply being Irish almost guaranteed a full house. Fees improved significantly. Two of these at the end of your ‘cool’ indie tour and you could afford vitamin C for the drummer.
But it was not an easy gig. Audiences could comprise people who had emigrated at any point in the last 50 years. Sometimes you were lucky, 1980s emigrants who knew your music but others wanted Big Tom or rebel songs. And if push ever came to shove and you admitted that you actually didn’t know any rebel songs, a room could turn murderous.
At a gig in Queens one night it seemed that the entire audience had just stepped off an Aer Lingus 747. The gig was rapturous and, at its end, I heard one fan say excitedly to his friend, “That was mega! It was like Newmarket on a Saturday night.” Two nights later, in the Bronx, it was a little less fun. As one guy pogoed against the stage he pulled at my leg and asked me to mind his coat. He put it beside the monitor opening it briefly to let me see that I was also minding his gun. I kept it as safe as I could.
Our last ever ‘Neon Shamrock’ show had for some reason an air impending finality about it. It was a tough audience. Request after request came to the stage for songs we didn’t know. All I could do was keep repeating that we were an original band.
The owner didn’t care. He was adamant that we were booked for two and a half hours and would play every minute or not get paid. The first hour was the songs that had been ‘hits’ in Ireland. The dance floor remained empty.
But as the set wore on and the music choices more obscure - B-sides and covers – it just seemed to take off. At exactly the two hours and thirty minutes mark a loud whistle blew. It was our manager, side stage, a football whistle in his mouth and a tray of tequila shots in his hands. “That’s it!” he said, “it’s over.” And it was, well for Neon Shamrock tours anyway. I won’t lie, I still wake up nights screaming.
