In the morning there is a St Paddy’s Day parade through the centre of Sydney. This seems somewhat tame and disappointingly not at all Guinness soaked, though it is still a bit too early. Also, some of the parade participants think dressing up as Father Ted with a placard saying ‘down with this sort of thing!’ has not yet been overdone.
Things liven up when we go to Hyde Park, where there is an official party, which has the feel of a friendly and not overly crowded festival. There are lots bands playing traditional Irish-ish music, though the area in front of the stage is too hot in the mid afternoon sun for anybody to paying too much attention. However, the bar tent has an efficient system going on and the crowd liven up as the day goes on.
I go to get drinks twice and twice I come back to find that our group has moved and I am wondering if they are trying to tell me something. The first time, Just John came to find me as I was carrying his pint of Guinness. The second time, Jen finds me to say everyone had left. I start to complain about everyone playing hide and seek with me to which Jen responds that I am starting to ‘fook’ her off and that I hadn’t told anybody where I was going. They could have guessed. I tell her that she is starting to ‘fook me off’ too and then she stormed off. Oh well.
I decide to sit down in the now cooler sun to watch the day’s festivities close with a U2 tribute band, who do a competent job of replicating several tracks from The Joshua Tree plus One and Beautiful Day. However, only the singer vaguely fulfils his role as a doppelganger, making his introduction of the bass player as ‘Mr Larry Mullen Jr.’ somewhat ridiculous. When did role playing tribute bands graduate from being anything other than gargantuanly naff I wonder? I hear that Mani from the Stone Roses often turns up to DJ for ‘Stoned Roses’ gigs. Bah humbug.
At 6pm, when ‘Bono’ announces that they can only play one more song, I make my way to avoid the crowds. Later I learn that somebody had climbed on top of the stage roof and proceeded to moon the audience during the last song, which was the cue for lots of self-important security men to shout down their radios ‘get him off of there!’.
I stop at the ‘hotel’ around the corner from the hostel, which has become my local during my stay in Sydney as it serves a $5 schooner of Bulmers - often $9 elsewhere in central Sydney.
Feeling somewhat dejected over my little tiff with Jen, I have a drunk conversation with some random Irish girls about how weird it is to be travelling with a large group of people but still manage to feel lonely. Bring out the finger violins!
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| someone getting their Star Trek convention mixed up with St Paddy's Day parade |
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| the Irish Wolfhounds |
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