I picked up the phone and texted ‘Hey you! Welcome back! Fancy going to the Barenaked Ladies tonight?’.
My Russian buddy, IT, had been back in Moscow for the summer. It was now September and university was about to start up again. This was a time when I wrote lots of music reviews and that particular Sunday night, I was to review a show by the Canadian band in Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
Sometimes there are perks to things like this, getting to see decent gigs and the treasured +1 on the guest list. My OH, Tahlulah, (who also likes to call herself my subeditor – I wonder if she’ll leave this in?) couldn’t make the gig that night so I thought I’d phone a friend.
IT replied ‘Yes! What time do we need to leave at? I’ll meet you at the bus stop’. We meet and chat, I get all the news about loves, losses and life in Moscow.
Jumping off the bus at Trinity College, the city centre is bustling with the return of the culchies (country folk who go home at weekends to their Mammies) and cases being dragged along the street.
We walk along the south side of Dame Street, the opposite side from the Central Bank. We chat as we pass pubs and a couple of basement gentleman’s clubs. The red man is out, we stand at the traffic lights waiting for our turn to cross. The lights beep, the red man turns green and we cross the road.
As we reach the other side, IT asks ‘Nessy, where are we going ?’. I signal towards The Olympia, visible two minutes walk away.
‘Oh!’, IT says with a slight surprised but definite disappointment in his voice. ‘You said Talulah was away’. Pointing towards a gentleman’s club he says ‘I thought we were going to see bare naked ladies’.
You can read my review of the night on Goldenplec
Barenaked Ladies photo taken from their website