In 1999, the former home of the Irish Film Theatre on Leeson Street, Dublin, [derelict since 1985] became the much-loved, multi-cultural venue, The Sugar Club.
Twelve years on, the venue’s co-founder and cocktailsmith, Oisin Davis (above), is moving on.
But not before reminiscing a little:
On a dull Tuesday evening, I hooked up Republic of Loose with a somewhat lame but highly paid corporate gig. They were at the height of their fame and their legendary partying. I was kept busy walking round the venue babysitting the client and micromanaging all their fiddly requests. The MD of the company remarked that there was a strong smell of “hashish” coming from the disabled toilet. I went down to investigate. Sure enough the band were there, all 8 of them actually. A massive cloud of smoke came billowing out as soon as I opened the door. I looked in and saw at least one pipe going round. The bass player Saul, clocks me. He does his best Obi Wan Kenobi and slowly moves the fingers of his right hand in front of my face and says, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. ” F**king genius.
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Twas a mad, typically hectic Christmas season Friday night. We were breaking a new duty manager in. He was a cool Scottish fella called Martin. The Camembert Quartet were due to be on stage. I was up to me hoop so I delegated the task of getting the band on stage, to Martin. This was usually something I did as it always required a lot of work and diplomacy. One band member could be at the bar, while another would always be out the back chatting up a female. Either way, you’d have to break up a conversation somewhere and drag them down into the disabled toilet to get changed and hit the stage but on this one night, two of the lads in the band wanted to play a gag on me. Just at stage time when the knock came on the door for the lads to get a move on, one of them knelt down and rubbed a load of creamy soap all over his own face whilst the other lad unzipped his fly and took his mickey out. Martin walks in and sees one guy on his knees with a white goo all over his face and the other guy with his cock in his hand. He screams like a red headed stepchild, bolts up to the office looking totally shell shocked. It’s a testimony to the band’s sheer professionalism that they still managed to put on a wicked gig. Because every time they saw me and my esteemed colleague Martin, we’d all laugh our hoops off.
Tales From The Sugar Club – PART 1 The Disabled Toilet (The Rock Star Cook Book)
Thanks Bibi
Martin Naughton (above), a support officer with the Disability Federation of Ireland, briefing fellow disability campaigners on his meeting earlier (above) with Minister for Health James Reilly.
