quireboys us tour poster final 600pxThe Quireboys are wrapping up a successful four-week stint in North America and guitarist Paul Guerin has been keeping fans in touch with a classic tour every step of the way.

Here the boy from Blyth returns to the Big Apple ahead of a gig in Queens.

Read all about the band crossing the border into Canada right here very soon… 

 

Always remember you can whack a fly to death but you can’t whack New York City.

I was really looking forward to returning to the Big Apple. New York is one of my favorite cities in the world – I spent quite a bit of time there especially when I was playing with Mary McBride.

We rolled up to the venue in Queens and jumped the subway straight into Manhattan, leaping out at Lexington Avenue.

First port of call was Central Park and the Dakota Building. This is where John Lennon lived with Yoko until he was shot at the entrance by Mark Chapman.

The movie Rosemary’s Baby with Mia Farrow was filmed in there too.

There was quite a bit of scaffolding up so it kind of spoiled the view of a splendid building but we checked out the Strawberry Fields memorial garden and then we ninjad it down to Times Square.

We jumped into a diner for a quick bite – it was a place where the waitresses all took turns to sing classic show tunes…’Annie, Get Your Gun, tum te tum’ – really good fun. Well, we were on Broadway after all.

Faces stuffed we tootled off through Times Square checking out the naked cowboy, of course, and other oddities that pepper the square. Dave had never been to New York so it was great that we had a couple of hours to show him the spots.

We jumped the blue line to the World Trade Centre sight – it was an amazing sight to emerge from the subway and see the Freedom Tower. I was here before 9/11 and I was here post-9/11 before construction had really got underway.

It was quite inspiring to see the Tower close up for the first time. There is – and I guess there always will be – a heavy atmosphere at Ground Zero but what can you expect considering what happened here?

Time ran out on us as usual so we headed back to Queens for soundcheck. We arrived at the venue to find the promotor shouting his mouth off about this and that whilst providing Keith with a keyboard that resembled a toy…AND it didn’t work! To cut a long story short we managed to sort everything out….job’s a goodun

Another friend from the past showed up out of the Blue – my friend Ollie, who I hadn’t seen for at least 15 years, was in one of the opening acts. It was great to see him and meet his loverly wife.

Armed with our three drinks tickets each(no rider) we had a couple of frothies out back before the show. Ryan Roxie, Nita Strauss and Glen Sobel from the Alice Cooper band come to check out the show which, considering we had no soundcheck as such, was a stormer. I loved it – the crowd were brilliant and it was great to be playing in New York again. But Canada was calling…

PG

* The Quireboys’ new album Black Eyed Sons is out now!

* Click here for a full list of tour dates in 2014.