TAPE SCRAPE
On Tuesday I find time to catch up on social media and emails. Here’s an example of what comes in: “Hello there, to whom it concerns. I’m in a spot of bother here as my 90-year-young dad’s favourite Tommy Fleming cassette is banjaxed. Shops don’t sell cassettes any more, but try telling that to him. When you get a moment hopefully you may have one for him? Or you might ring him for a laugh? I’m at my wits’ end.”
Needless to say, I cannot help the poor man, as cassettes are well and truly gone. But I will try to record from a CD to cassette to help him out.
It’s a busy week as my new album has been released and the nationwide promo is under way. I’m on the road from Sligo to Cork, stopping off at Midlands Radio in Tullamore for a live interview. On Wednesday, I’m in the RTE TV studio in Cork for a performance and chat with Maura Derrane and Daithí Ó Sé on the Today show.
Afterwards I hit the road for Dublin. Travel time is filled with an array of music played at full blast: my favourite travelling companions include Madonna, Barbra Streisand and the High Kings.
A TALE OF TWO TOMMYS
On Thursday I’m in Wicklow for a Christmas concert in St Patrick’s Church. While singing Danny Boy a wave of panic comes over me: I can’t remember packing my laptop when leaving the hotel in Cork. I suffer on and continue with the concert, then ring the hotel as soon as I’m finished, hoping it’s been found. And yes, of course it has. Thankfully, the hotel has held it for me.
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Afterwards there’s a meet and greet which seems to go on forever. I didn’t realise so many people would want a photo. Most just want an album or photo signed, but on the odd occasion you will meet someone you won’t forget, such as the person who tells me I resemble Donald Trump. That takes me aback — but with public opinion so divided, I just decide to say thanks.
Later a woman tells me she is blown away as she had never heard of me before and thought she was going to see Tommy Tiernan. A different night out to what she was expecting, but not unenjoyable. Not sure what Tommy T would say, though.
I’ve had many other interesting conversations with fans. While touring Australia I once met a woman who spoke in a plain midlands accent. I asked if she was over visiting family, and she told me she had not been in Ireland for 50 years and there was no point in travelling back now as everyone she knew had died. She had found me on YouTube and was keeping up to date with news back home.
Another night a woman stayed back to thank me for my songs helping her through the most difficult time in her life. Three months previously she had lost her husband — the father to her five children — in a boating accident. She explained that it was her first night out since, and although she had cried the whole way through the concert she felt relieved and in better form.
MAIDEN VOYAGE
Saturday is a rest day but I have to buy Christmas presents. I haven’t got into online shopping yet, but it will be sorted for next year as the madness is just not worth it. While shopping in Dublin with my wife Tina and daughter Becky, the ladies suggest that, being loaded down with bags, we hop on the Luas back to the hotel. Unbelievably, this is my first trip on the Luas ever — I don’t even know how to work the ticket machine without Becky’s help.
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Being this time of year, the tram is packed; not a seat to be had. But that’s not the problem. When you’re standing holding on to a pole for dear life and your photo is staring back at you advertising your new album, there is only one thing to do: put the head down and pray the journey passes fast.
Every time the Luas stops at the lights I head towards the door, thinking it’s time to get out. I should have picked a quiet week for my first trip.
There’s a few more radio interviews and concerts before I hit the road back to Sligo. I am so looking forward to getting home. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.
Tommy Fleming’s new album is Stories: 25 Years of Songs; tommyfleming.net