Northern Ireland hard rock band The Answer don’t hit the States all that often, but when they do, it’s in style. Six years ago, the band were the opening act for AC/DC. They’re back again in support of their fifth album, Raise a Little Hell, and this time, the’re opening up for Whitesnake. The band have agreed to share their tour diary with us. On Day 3, they make it to El Paso:
Day 3: El Paso, Texas
The San Antonio show was off the chart. I gave more high fives after the show than Stone Cold Steve Austin the night he won Royal Rumble 97 in the very same. I’m just loving being in Texas right now. After any show we play I generally like to kick back with a few beers and whatever else is going. After the San Antonio show I made an exception and put the beers on ice so I could get my photo taken at the Alamo; the actual Alamo!! I couldn’t believe it was walking distance from the venue. Back home we count ourselves lucky if there’s a late night bar still serving out of date beer by the time we come offstage. In San Antonio I got to live out every Western movie fans dream and visit one of the most famous landmarks in America’s relatively short history. To celebrate I went and found those beers I was talking about and drank every last one of them along with half a bottle of tequila and a couple of Whiskey shots for good measure.
So it was in a haze of stereotype Irish drunkeness we boarded our RV and set sail for El Paso. This town is a bit of an unlikely spiritual home for us as this is where we recorded our 2011 album “Revival” on a Pecan ranch right on the Mexican border. We were so close to Mexico we got to know some of the border police by first name terms and would regularly walk and stare in disbelief at the sinister looking 21 feet steel fence that runs along the border and separates the two polar worlds of El Paso and Juarez. Some of the stories we were told about what goes on beyond that intimidating feat of George Bushian architecture makes Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s sound like a holiday park for ageing Buddhist monks.
After a pretty chilled day off spent by the pool, supping cold beers and listening to the two Michaels (Waters of The Answer and Devin of Whitesnake) talk about guitars, playing styles and side projects we loaded into the Sochoro Casino for the third gig of the tour. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that tickets for this 5k capacity venue are a very reasonable 10 dollars which basically means the place will be rammed full of rockers who now have a few more bucks to spend on beer and enjoy the show. After tonight’s entertainment we’ve got a 700 mile drive to Colorado to look forward to so we may have to enlist the help of our dear friend José Cuervo to loosen us up and get us though the business end of the journey. But hey that’s what we do and if we’re gonna conquer America before the end of the Summer we have to out the miles in right!?
The Lone Star state has been good to The Answer and given us the perfect start to an exciting tour. Texas we salute you!! Colorado; you’re next!!
