Liz Tormes' Tour Diary, Part 2

Hitting a few rough patches in Europe

By Liz Tormes
Published: April 29th, 2008 | 2:25pm

Singer-songwriter Liz Tormes has agreed to take us on her first tour of Ireland. Check venuszine.com for weekly updates as Tormes chronicles her adventures and gives us insight into the pros and cons of going it alone across the pond. Read the first part of her tour diary here.

Thursday, April 10, 2008 — Time is not on my side

There are no clocks in Ireland. I mean, in the hotels, at least my hotels. My requested 8:30 a.m. wake-up call inexplicably arrived two hours early at 6:30 a.m., about 30 minutes after I finished writing my previous entry. I was still awake and figured the backup alarm clock egg timer I brought would be loud enough to wake me at 8:45 a.m. It either wasn't working or it did and I turned it off after finally falling asleep.

I was to meet Teddy at his hotel at 11:15 a.m. I woke up at 11:05 a.m. totally unpacked. The room looked like my suitcase had thrown-up. I panicked and called Teddy (the first on my "international" cell phone. Up to that point, I wasn't sure if it even worked). It rang and rang — thank God he finally picked up. I told him I missed my wake-up call and I'd be there at 11:30 a.m. That was pushing it.

Amazingly, I got there at 11:35 a.m., which wasn't a big deal, but at that point I was completely frazzled and had no time to get my $5 cup of coffee. I wouldn't have been able to carry it anyway. I had dropped my jacket on the sidewalk in my struggle to run up the road to his hotel with my suitcase, my guitar, my travel bag, and two bags of CDs. Some strangers called out to me, so I ran back to get it. Ah, the glamour.

Teddy drove us to Cork. We stopped at a fish & chips for lunch. I'm a vegetarian so I had the hashbrowns (eating so far hasn't been too much of a problem, just lots of egg sandwiches). I spent the time before soundcheck on the phone with tech support so I could get the laptop up and running. I finally got it to connect, ran to the venue for soundcheck, and ran back to the hotel, stopping at an Internet café, as I wasn't able to access my main e-mail account from the laptop. Back at the hotel, I grabbed my CDs and ran to the venue.

The show was good, but the crowd was really talkative during my set. They were also talkative through Teddy's set but he had some shushers in his crowd that weren't there for my set.

Friday, April 11, 2008 — A Happy Accident

Something really strange just happened. I sold a total of two CDs last night at the Cork gig — not so good. The club booker's wife was selling them at the door for me so I didn't feel the pressure to be there as soon as the show let out to sell them myself, as I had done in Dublin. Also, the crowd was so loud during my set; I really didn't think I was connecting with them at all. I got a bit trapped in a conversation with a nice guy from Kerry after Teddy's set and knew I should go outside to check on the wife and the CDs.

Just as I was trying to end the conversation, the club's booker rushes up and hurriedly hands me the remaining CDs. I could tell he was annoyed that I hadn't gone to the door to sign them immediately. "You only sold two and would have sold a lot more had you been there to sign them," he said. I felt a little guilty and annoyed at myself. Even this morning, the feeling lingered.

Anyway, I arrived at Cork Airport this morning to find out my flight to Galway is an hour and a half late — that, after having had to unpack my suitcase at the check-in counter to redistribute the weight into my other carry-on bags. It was too heavy. Fitting three boxes of CDs into an already full suitcase did me in, but the overcharges were exorbitant, so I had no choice.

I was a little cranky.

As I am sitting here at Starbucks working on the tour diary, I hear someone say my name. Of course, I didn't think they were talking to me. Then, two men from a group of five or so people come up and say, "Are you Liz Tormes?" I was a little stunned. "We saw your set at Crane Lane last night and loved it. Both of us bought your CD. We waited after to see if you could sign it for us, but didn't see you. Can you sign it for us now?"

Running into the only two people who bought my CD all because of a delayed flight at the Cork airport — insane. Not so cranky.

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Click here for Part 3 of Liz Tormes' tour diary.