During the first week of this year’s Irish Open, I wrote a piece about its legendary night-spot – the Craic Den. But the festival was just getting warmed up at that point, so I was tasked with re-visiting the venue when, shall we say, the stakes were higher.
It’s Good Friday, and the final weekend in the Den is starting with a bang. Both beer pong and karaoke are on the agenda tonight. The normally ebullient Phil “The Tower” Heald, seems unusually downbeat about my prospects, however.
“What could possibly go wrong?” I ask naively. There’s a brief pause.
“Everything…” replies Phil, with a rueful shake of the head. “…Everything.”
I enter the fray around half nine, ready to meet the Craic denizens head on. Immediately, it becomes apparent that The Tower might have had a point. There are several people on beanbags, asleep. At half nine. It’s 120 decibels in here and there are people asleep! What has this place done to them?
I’ve pre-loaded with a couple of beers before I get here and I’m feeling slightly warm and fuzzy already. I get myself a Guinness and hit the shuffleboard.
The first couple of ends are pretty terrible but then all of a sudden, I’m in the zone. I win two games in quick succession. This is incredible, I can’t miss.
But then a worrying thought occurs…
If I’m in the zone and it’s barely 10pm, what kind of state am I going to be in come 3am?
Well… I guess we’re about to find out.
Beer ponging
I decide to quit shuffleboard while I’m ahead and sign up for the first of tonight’s entertainments: beer pong.
Evidently, I’ve been having too much fun pushing pucks down pine panels. Beer pong is already fully subscribed.
This is frustrating on two levels: firstly because I have lost a key part of my story tonight – but secondly and more importantly, because I’m skint and could do with the free beer.
Nevertheless, with this article in mind, I decide to keep a close eye on proceedings and become an impromptu ball-boy, chasing errant ping-pong balls around the Den as they bounce off cups, tables or spectators’ heads. With four games in progress at any one time, this is no easy task.
I’m not being entirely altruistic – there is always the possibility that a registered team fails to turn up, and I want to make sure I can jump in that grave before anybody else.
However, as the first round of matches progresses, it becomes clear that people do not sign up to this event on a whim. Without fail, the teams step up promptly when called, eager to do battle – and no doubt as keen as I am to get their hands on some buckshee booze.
The penultimate duo are already lined up when Phil Baker calls the final team to the table. Five seconds pass and he calls them again. My Spidey senses are beginning to tingle. A third request goes unclaimed and it’s clear we have a no-show.
I’m already staking my claim before Phil has a chance to offer it to the floor. Just as I do, my colleague Christoffer Karlén looms into view and his arm takes very little twisting.
Now we are talking – or as Christoffer likes to say, “Currently, we are exchanging words”. Ah, that famous Swedish sense of humour.
We register as The Burrito Brothers — a name based on our entire diet over the course of the last week. The game is nip and tuck. It takes us a few throws to get our collective eye in but then it clicks. In one round we both score, and now need to plop just one more ping-pong ball into the final cup to progress.
But our form deserts us as quickly as it came and a late rally from our rivals dumps us out in the first round.
I’m disappointed but even at this stage I realise that this may have been a blessing in disguise. The night is still young and given the amount of alcohol consumed in a single round of beer pong, an early exit is probably for the best.
Karaoke time
In any case, that was merely an hors d’oeuvre to the main event – karaoke. I’ve never done it before but I figure you don’t want to go on too early – you want the crowd warmed up. I can’t quite believe it but I’m trying to find the GTO method for karaoke.
What I hadn’t factored in was that now I have a good hour-and-a-half of mounting nerves: 90 minutes of pacing up and down the Den trying to calm my anxiety with Guinness.
First up is my beer pong buddy Christoffer, alongside RecPoker stalwart, Jim Reid. They give us a rousing rendition of The Backstreet Boys’ Everybody. (Editor’s note: What it should sound like) It’s a marvellous curtain-raiser and a tough act to follow. But follow they do… Some highlights include: fellow Irish Open reporter Chris Bean with a bravura version of This Charming Man – and Lydia Cugudda, fresh from her 2nd place finish in the Ladies Championship, giving a high-energy performance of The Foo Fighters’ Times Like These which goes down a storm.
Next up is Laura Carrol. Laura is my boss for the fortnight and I’d like to be invited back next year, so you’d expect me to be appropriately fawning. But her take on The Chicks’ Travellin’ Soldier is genuinely moving. A kind of hush descends over the rabble, as we are taken to a different place by her choice of tune – right up until the point where Phil Baker declares it “depressing” and cuts her off.
Then it’s back to the classics. We are treated to Parklife, Sweet Caroline, The Gambler and at least a couple of Eminem tracks.
Throughout this, I’m still pacing about with rising apprehension. At one point, someone stops me and asks me if I’m “that fella off the telly”. I have literally no idea who he thinks I might be — with my green tartan trousers and grey hair in bunches, but the answer is obviously, no… I am not that fella off the telly.
And then the blood drains to my boots as I hear my name called over the PA. I want to bolt out of the room but the knowledge that I will have to report this act of cowardice forces me to drag myself onstage. Well, that and the Guinness.
My choice of tune is The Ace of Spades. Not only a fitting subject, but I figure that growling out some Motörhead is going to be a damn sight easier than trying to actually hold a tune. I mean, how hard can it be?
As it turns out, a lot harder than it looks. I’m barely into the second verse when my voice starts going. The rasping vocal is killing my throat and the pitch of the song is a good tone or two above what I was expecting. I thought I could carry this off but unfortunately the only similarity I have with Lemmy is a big wart on the side of my face.
I get through it but only just. To my surprise, I am not pelted with rotten fruit and there are even some kind words and slaps on the back.
I am de-mob happy now. Fully able to enjoy the rest of the repertoire with the elation of knowing my ordeal is over. There are anthems and ballads and barnstormers and to my ears at least, it all sounds wonderful.
David Lappin plumps for the Leadbelly classic, Where Did You Sleep Last Night. It’s a big mood shift but he somehow pulls it off.
At the end of the night, the stage is taken by the Craic Den Sisterhood – Vanessa Kade and Deborah Worley Roberts among their number – and they belt out Shania Twain’s, Man! I Feel Like A Woman!
And then it’s time to leave. It’s hammering down with rain but I couldn’t care less, as I walk back to the hotel, no doubt in something less than a straight line. Or when I walk back again to the RDS, after realising I’ve left my jacket there with the key card to my room. By the time I get back to the hotel I am soaked to skin.
I head to my room, dry off and try to write up some notes from the evening but it isn’t easy. The room is spinning and lurching and somebody has apparently poured a mixture of sand and glue behind my eyeballs.
After an hour or so I think I’ve captured enough of the salient points to be able to reconstruct a story at a later juncture. By now, they are serving breakfast. Having not eaten for approximately 10 hours, I cram as much fried food into myself as I can manage and grab 3 or 4 hours’ kip before the next day’s work begins.
Miraculously, this seems to do the trick and I wake up around noon, feeling relatively unscathed.
The same cannot be said for everyone. What happens in the Craic Den stays in the Craic Den but unfortunately, what is consumed in the Craic Den doesn’t always stay in the consumer.
