09.01.17 – 12.15PM – Friday afternoon – Costa Coffee, Smithfield, Dublin

In true Star Trek fashion, it occurred to me about 45 seconds before my free wifi pass ended that I could buy more and actually have enough connection to start writing. Down to the wire! A race against time! Primo dumbassery! Savvy world traveler that I am, with my Americano and my bookbag and my UK converter plugged into my $60 laptop charger. Will I ever get over that? I certainly haven’t yet.

Emerald Haze 2017 starts in a few hours. The dudes from Blaak Heat and Abrahma — spoiler alert: it’s mostly the same dudes in both bands at this point — just came through for a bit and had a pleasant, minimally awkward chat before fest-organizer Sid Daly, also of Mother Mooch, who play tomorrow night on the Mother Fuzzers Ball stage, came and grabbed them to go to the Voodoo Lounge. I got to see the venue for a bit yesterday and walked around Dublin. There are flags up for the fest, underscoring the county-supported legitimacy of the event, and posters, one of which I had my picture taken next to prior to being caught in a rainstorm and seeing the rainbow above. Look at me, existing and whatnot.

I’m crashing with Sid and his girlfriend Olga, who are both fantastic and have been far more hospitable to me than I deserve, and I slept for about 12 hours last night. No shit. Dinner was a salad of kale and baby spinach with a fresh chili pepper from their garden — hot and delicious — olive oil, black pepper, garlic powder and the salmon out of one of the vacuum-sealed pouches I brought with me, and I think I finished that at about 19.30 and by 20.45 I was asleep on their couch. They set up a camper bed for me that I transferred to after 22.30 and I was up for a bit then, but back to sleep again within an hour and I crashed out until about 09.20 this morning. Needed it.

Coffee for breakfast this morning out of their French press — I’ve never made French press coffee before; it’s fun, though I’m sure I’m doing it completely wrong compared to what an expert would advise — and a completely necessary long shower and here I am. Sid and Olga were both out this morning when I got up, picking up Church of the Cosmic Skull and The Cosmic Dead from the airport, and they swung back to the house to pick me up at around 10.45. I met both bands on the bus and it’s cool to put voices and faces to people I’ve emailed with before and been in touch with for reviews and such. I’m looking forward to seeing both groups play. Same goes for Abrahma and Blaak Heat. The whole day is pretty choice, really. Here’s the schedule, as originally posted here:

Friday, Sept. 1
Doors – 6.00

The Obelisk Stage
7.00–7.30 Elder Druid
7.45–8.15 Blaak Heat
8.30–9.00 Abrahma
9.15–10.00 The Cosmic Dead
10.30–11.20 Church of the Cosmic Skull

MFB Stage
8.00–8.30 Zlatanera
8.45–9.15 Mount Soma
9.30–10.10 King Witch
10.25-11.05 Electric Octopus
11.20–12.20 Wild Rocket

I listened to the new Wild Rocket album last night. It’s called Disassociation Mechanics and it absolutely smokes. Just awesome. And Electric Octopus’ three-plus hours of straight jamming too on their Driving Under the Influence of Jams. I have the vague feeling those guys are going to take the stage to soundcheck and just not stop for their 40 minutes onstage. One of those oh-I-guess-the-set-has-started kinds of scenarios. All vibe. Can’t wait.

Coming up on 13.00 now and I’m feeling a bit manic between getting the day’s posts up and writing this and trying to put myself in the headspace for the show later, but whatever, it’ll sort itself out. In about an hour I’ll eat the protein bar I brought for lunch or maybe the pack of salmon and then make my way to the venue and wait there. Seb from Abrahma just walked by going one way and The Cosmic Dead and Church of the Cosmic Skull just walked by going the other, so I’m kind of in my own little world here and that suits me well enough for the time being. Best to keep things low-key until they’re not anymore. It’s not exactly going to be a short night, and I’m still working basically on Eastern time, so yeah. Long way to go.

Next update should be a review of tonight. Going to try to see as much of it as possible. Thanks in advance if you get to check it out.

Tags: Dublin, Emerald Haze, Emerald Haze 2017, Emerald Haze 2017 Trip, Ireland

This entry was posted on Friday, September 1st, 2017 at 10:22 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.