Livigno

Nice view from the plane over

Another year, another snow holiday. To switch things up this year we went to Italy and tried snowboarding for the first time. It was also our first time not going with the UCPA so had our own place which was great, but we did miss the great French food and we could have done with the week long lessons as snowboarding proved more difficult than I expected.

Our house for the week

Flew into Milan and got a minibus transfer for about 3.5 hours to Livigno. We were brought straight to our house which was really nice:
http://www.piccolabaita.it/piccola-baita.php#dettagli
€305 each.

We were able to collect our ski gear that evening and get some food for the house so we were all set for our first snowboarding lesson first thing in the morning. I went for boots slightly large for me as the correct size ones were far too tight.

Heading to Apres-Ski

Some Damme impressive dancing at the Apres-ski by some Russians

Graeme topping up his drink

We got our lessons from a company called Madness and had a really nice instructor, Gerry. Normally their lessons would be for 2 hours each morning for a week but we crammed all the lessons into the first 3 days. This probably wasn't the wisest thing as we didn't improve much in the last 3 days.We would have been better practising everything we learned each morning, in the afternoon by ourselves. I did start to pick up the forward and backward turn at the start of the first day and didn't really learn anything else for the rest of the week which was a shame.

Louise taking a deserved break

Livigno town was a nice place but very quiet. We had a great Apres-Ski session on Monday straight after snowboarding and we all ended up dancing on the bar which was a first for me. They are very generous with their shot pouring over there so that's how I ended up on the bar that night. Getting up for lessons the next day was rough and we were quite late meeting Gerry.

Toner and Gerry

We went out for dinner every night as Livigno is tax free so the prices were real good.

I'm not sure what to do next year, stick with snowboarding or go back to skiing. I found skiing much easier to pick up but I reckon a week of snowboarding classes would put me in a good position. I much prefer the snowboard boats and carrying around a snowboard is much easier too. Snowboarding is much more painful though and I still had pains for days after I got back which I never had from skiing.

Adam and Graeme

Phil riding in Livigno

Nice Livigno sunset

Livigno sunset

Gigging - Dave Gorman, Future Islands, MØ

Had a few gigs towards the end of the year.

DAVE GORMAN

First was Dave Gorman in Vicar St. He was very funny and did one of his power point shows which he's an absolute pro at these days. I was glad to finally see him live as i've been a fan of his work for ages. His gig is as you would expect it but he's got it so down that it's a great experience.

FUTURE ISLANDS - 03/11/14

Next was back to Vicar St again Future Islands. Unfortunately on a Monday night so we kept it quiet but FI sure went hell for leather. The lead is a right mentaller and a great showman. The place went crazy for his dancing. And he seemed to really enjoy himself though and really went for it. He shirt was soaked through by about half way through the show which was kinda gross, especially when he thumbed his chest and you could see all the sweat fly.

I loved his showmanship and was fairly entranced by him as I didn't watch any of the other band members for the night. They played 4 encores at the end too which kept everyone happy.

MØ - 04/11/14

The night after FI above we went to see MØ in The Academy. As with FI she really gave her all. It was great to see her in such a small venue as I suspect she is destined for a large stage. She went nice and wild towards the end of the gig, singing one song in the middle of the crowd and then running upstairs to where we were to sing another over the balcony. Then at the end she did some crowd surfing which I haven't seen done in a while. She even did a Spice Girls song which was strange. I had heard that the Spice Girls were the first group she got into as a kid and then moved onto punk and hip-hop and she said she is now a mix of all 3 styles.

Electric Picnic 2014

WOOOHOOO, another EP survived. They do seem to get tougher year on year but that may be down to me losing my youthfulness.

First day turned out a beauty after rain in the morning

There probably wasn't as many big names at this years one but still got to see some great acts, including a few new ones. Weather was mainly good throughout again too. We're always so lucky with the weather. It did piss down on the Friday morning but we had our tents up so were safe. Rest of the weekend was dry with the sun popping out on occasions.

Here were some of my highlights:

Pet Shop Buys were good on the main stage of Fri night but I do prefer them in a tent. Last time I saw them they blew me away and not so much this time.

Pet Shop Boys

Young Fathers were one of the real highlights for me. Late in Body and Soul they rocked the main stage there and were brilliant. Was singing Get Up for the rest of the weekend. Went to the rave in the forest on the first night too but we weren't mad about it so left again.

Young Fathers

James Murphy had a great dj set and we also saw some of Blondie and Foals who were both pretty good.

A random tiny stage

On Saturday we started off with a nice breakfast bap and bumped into Louise and her gang who were there for her sisters 40th.

We Cut Corners were one of the highlights for Saturday and also one of the first acts we saw which is unusual. I've really enjoyed them any time I've seen them and they sure make a good racket for just 2 guys.

Our main gang at EP 2014

A surprise find for the day were Clean Bandit who got the crowd going as well as anyone over the weekend. We had intended to go see FKA Twigs but unfortunately she didn't turn up due to illness.

We went to a small bit of comedy and saw Patrick McDonnell who i've seen before but think is very good.

We went to Hozier on the main stage who was good but would have been better suited to a tent. Others we saw on Saturday were Metronomy, London Grammar and Omar Souleyman who was very good. Also got to see RSAG who's always rocking and The Minutes in a tiny tent who were unbelievably banging and ended up playing 3 times over the weekend.

We went to the main stage to finish off with some Chic. What little I remember from that was great.

Sunday we saw Sinead O'Connor on the main stage who was good. I found St Vincent to be a bit disappointing just because it's so downbeat. We moved onto Jungle who were excellent and really upbeat.

We went to David O'Doherty in the comedy tent who was excellent as always and then moved onto Kelis and Outkast to finish off the night who were both brilliant too.

After Outkast I believe there was a while on the amusements and who knows where we went to then.

Xmas - 12 pubs - David O'Doherty

12 Pubs
Second year doing the 12 pubs of Christmas and must say I fared much worse this year than last. Last year I got through the 12 pints without too much of a struggle. Drunk obviously, but not feeling too bad. This year I hit a wall after the 10th pub. I would have happily went home at that stage but my resignation was not accepted by the others.

4 or 5 pubs in and all is well

Greener joined us for the first time this year too and held up well by avoiding his usual tendency to overdo it with the shots. By a big coincidence I also bumped into Ken Browne in Solas which was funny if only for the fact that this was the only 30 minutes I spent in the pub all year. He joined us for a while but I don't remember anything we talked about. So all in all, I don't know why this year was so much tougher than last year but next year I may need to contemplate switching to bottles after a while, or getting more water into me somehow. 

Things got messier around pub 9

David O'Doherty 
Going to see DOD in Whelans at Christmas is something of a tradition for us at this stage. I still think he's great even though we had seen a lot of this material previously, haven seen him at EP this year also. Still this is a tradition I am happy to continue.


Christmas

Myself and Louise went our separate ways again for Christmas and I spent a few days at home in Cork playing with Lucy, Sam and Ruairi. As always, mum did a great job with everything and I had a great time. Unfortunately we couldn't get the lads together for a night over the break but we did finally move on from Barry's on Xmas eve and went to South County instead. I must say it was an improvement and I will be happy to go there in future.

Lucy in our porch at home

Sam on xmas morning

Sam photobombing a nice Lucy pic

Mum went a bit overboard with the decorations this year.

Sam relaxing after all the activities

Wonder