Ball of destruction

In a couple of hours I'm leaving for the airport to catch a plane and go on a little 24-hour visit to Dublin, where Rhythm To The Madness will be playing a show with New York City's legendary Madball.

The only time I've ever been to Ireland was years ago when hiking through its plains for 10 days, during which every sign of civilication or human presence was carefully avoided. So I've never been to Dublin and neither has anyone in our road crew, and if you've been an avid Complex Man reader you know how much I love Madball. Needless to say we're all pretty psyched on this little trip!

Besides seeing Dublin and watching Madball, we're looking forward to playing a show. It's been a while and this will be the last-but-one Rhythm To The Madness show, the final one being on February 17th in Antwerp, together with Floorpunch and our brothers in True Colors. But more info on that later. Or not.

I'm not familiar with the first two opening bands, but I've crossed paths with Famine a couple of times on the True Colors/Bitter End Tour last May, so it's gonna be good to see those guys again. I must say I think Famine on itself is a pretty silly bandname UNLESS you're an Irish band! After all it was during The Great Famine that a million Irishmen died of hunger and another million emigrated, decreasing the Irish population with over 20%. So an Irish band naming itself 'Famine' would be like a South-African band called 'AIDS' or a Russian band called 'Suicide'. Or an American band called 'Leave The Weak Behind'. I'm not sure how the Irish look back upon The Great Famine, but I think for an Irish band to name itself Famine is pretty gutsy. Imagine a Belgian band printing references to The Great Irish Famine on specially made T-shirts to sell at a Dublin-show. I'm not sure whether that would classify under 'gutsy' or just 'poor taste', but it definitely sounds like a thing Rhythm To The Madness would do. Tell me I won't...