July 13 1985
Trocaire Benefit with Paranoid Visions, A House + Kill Devil Hill and many more
CIE HALL
Vicarious Living lasted for just over a year. We put together a lyric sheet (hand written) and a tape of one our rehearsals and gave it to people. Why? Because Paranoid Visions had done something similar, albeit a bit better looking. We played quite a few times with the ‘Visions’ and it gave me a glimpse of how people could get gigs. Folk in towns all over Ireland were asking Paranoid Visions to travel and they did. Function rooms would be booked in pubs and the locals would all come out for a night of loud music. Paranoid Visions were instrumental in bringing bands like Subhumans and Poison Girls over from England to play and it made me aware of how possible it was to do something similar. It inspired me to find ways of getting people to do regular things in places where there was no established music scene.
Occasionally there was trouble at the gigs. Sometimes, if incidents had already happened, I was asked by the ‘Visions’ to book venues in my name. I soon saw how easy it was. The mystique behind gig promoting was gone. The only problem was letting people know about the gig. One venue I had to book was called the CIE Hall, a space for employees of (what is now) Dublin Bus. It was a large hall with a stage and room for over 300 people. It played host to punk bands like Disorder, Shrapnel and many Paranoid Visions gigs. Invariably though, trouble seemed to occur. It was common to see fire extinguishers being let off there and, inevitably, the hall was soon lost as a venue.
One of the last gigs to be held there was a benefit for Trocaire. My friend Hugo and Morgan organised it with me as a reaction to Live Aid. We asked 13 bands to play and somehow managed to pull it all off, raising £616 in the process and running out of time for AHouse to play
