May 31st
I’m psyched.
Beside me, rectangles of yellow highlighter all over the just-out, May 31-June 11 edition of The List, and all I’ve got to say is that the west of Ireland damn sure knows how to put on a bank holiday weekend.
Monday is a day off, and between Co. Mayo and Galway City, two music festivals – the Castlebar Blues Festival and the Heineken Green Energy Festival – are gonna be rockin’ out the west. Including blues groups from Ireland, the U.S. and the UK, and with names like Van Morrison and the Counting Crows performing, I may well take in enough concerts, shows and sets this weekend (along with corresponding amounts of booze) to do permanent damage to both my hearing and my sobriety.
Like I said, I’m psyched.
Recuperating between all of these events shouldn’t be too difficult, though. The List says there is also a literature reading, and some pub and club offerings (many also part of the Green Energy Festival) have seriously raised the eyebrows of one who hasn’t been going out much. So much to do, so much to see and to hear – I’m psyched, and for another reason: at home my tickets for both the Fun Lovin’ Criminals (Saturday night) and the Moby (Monday night) concerts are gagging to be torn. I at least know some of what I’m doing for the holiday weekend… the tough part is figuring out all the rest.
Saturday is pretty much set: I work 12-3, and then perhaps I’ll find a pub with some music on, where I can keep company with the Guinness until 6, when I’ll stagger into a literature reading at the Galway Arts Centre on Dominick Street. Featured are Puerto Rican/American ‘political poet’ Martin Espada, and Irish poet John F. Deane, founder of Poetry Ireland and Dedalus Press.
Of course, this could cut things a bit close; the FLC concert starts at 8 – but I think I can see plenty of the reading and made it to Castlegar Showgrounds, just a little outside of town, with plenty of time.
After the show it’s right back to the city centre, to Barcuba in Eyre Square – where Huey and Fast from FLC are coming around to do a DJ set.
Sunday I’m probably off to Castlebar, for the Blues Festival’s Blues Trail, made up of seven pubs, inns and hotels that are hosting acts. However, I’ve heard that the really fun part of Castlebar is the bus ride there; one of my co-workers told me that the Galway-Castlebar-Westport-Ballina route is where Bus Eireann sends its buses when it’s time for them to die, which with my luck means the bus will give up its diesel ghost just after we reach the end of the world, and take a right 10 miles later.
Monday, of course, is Moby – provided that I can make it back from the end of the world in time. One way or another, I could be in Castlebar through Monday, and come back to Galway in time for the concert, but I’ll probably just break out my highlighter again and give The List another read to make sure I didn’t miss anything else going on in town. No matter what else I find, though, this is going to be one hell of a weekend, and I’m going to gorge myself on beer, music and general fun.
Watch this space. If I’m not back by Tuesday morning, kindly file a missing-persons report. You never know – I could be passed out, hungover (or maybe still pissed) in a ditch, or maybe trapped in a bus somewhere between Galway and Castlebar, just past the fork in the road at the end of the world.
A Higher Taste
This has nothing to do with music, but I keep meaning to talk about Govinda’s, and since I’m thinking about it I’m just going to now.
Govinda’s is a vegetarian takeaway stand, set up at the top of Eyre Square (opposite the Dunnes Stores), 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and at the Saturday Market, same hours.
The stand is owned and operated by Uwe and Mary Tohak, a married Hindu couple from Germany and Ireland respectively. They started Govinda’s in 1999 through Galway Enterprise, a local program which helps entrepreneurs start up and maintain their own businesses.
Normally the thought of spending money on three or four meals a week would make me lose my appetite, but I go to Govinda’s for lunch whenever it is open. If they were open every day of the week, I’d probably eat there every day – and this coming from a notorious cheapskate who loves to cook.
On top of the yellow stand that houses Govinda’s a sign says ‘Get a Higher Taste’, and you should be warned that the Indian vegetarian food has the stuff of transcendence to it. Lentils, chickpeas, mung beans, cumin, coriander, and tons and tons of others spices and veg are served up in samosas (75p, big and divine) and kitchri (a IR£2 stew/soup so packed with veggies and pulses that it can even keep my appetite sated all afternoon). There are also daily specials, as well as puri, a fried puff bread, and laddu, a sweet made with powdered chickpeas and served up much like a brownie.
Govinda’s is one of those places where you just can’t go wrong; partly because there are not many selections, but what Govinda’s does, they do divinely.
In addition to the food, stick around a while and talk to the Tohaks, or pick up a book on Hinduism to read while you enjoy your lunch (they keep around a few texts, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, for interested souls who want to feed more than their stomachs).
A higher taste, indeed.
