Sophie kindly asked us to play at her birthday party on 13/10/2007 and thanks to her dad being a sound engineer, we had the best sound set-up we've ever had (it was an improvement on Ballyboden anyway).

About an hour into the evening, after much admiration of Aaron's new shirt (really, it's great) and a sausage in my drink, we began:

Last Nite (The Strokes)
Dónal's Original #2
Sukie in the Graveyard (Belle & Sebastian)
Know Your Onion (The Shins)
Put You Down (formerly Colm's Original #1)

After that we switched off the amps for a while and played the following on Sophie's dad's acoustic guitar:
Gone for Good (The Shins)
Two-Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel; sorry Aidan)
New Slang (The Shins)

The loudness returned with:
Dónals' Original #1
Colm's Original #2
The KKK Took My Baby Away (Ramones, too fast..)

We hadn't thought we'd need/forgot to leave a song for an encore, so we barreled through Last Nite again. We then headed to the kitchen for tiny sausages and paper cups of 7-up.

To be honest, saying that the bands hometown is Rathfarnham would be a lie. Only Donal Ahern (guitar/vocals) hails from that most pleasant of suburbs. Colm Dawson (guitar/vocals/keys) and Lorcan Gray (bass) are from Dundrum/Kilmacud. Kieran Murphy is a resident of the dodgy area of Templeogue.

Anyway, about the band...
As far as we remember, this all began on the 20th of February 2004. Having been inspired on that very day to start a band (after Dónal and Colm saw Lord of the Rings, Return of the King), we sat down Dónal's bedroom, paper and guitars in hand, to write our first song. Well, Colm wrote it, seeing as at the time Dónal could barely hold a guitar, nevermind write a song.

And so it went on from there, Dónal and Colm jamming alone for over a year before we found the next piece of the puzzle, Lorcan the Bassist! His long hair and classy (sleezy?) French-ness made him an essential addition. Shockingly we went another year and a bit without finding an adequate drummer. Adequate in that he/she could hit a snare and bass drum at the same time. Then it hit us, quite literally, as Adam fell from the sky right onto our heads. Yes thats right, after 3 years of a desperate(ly lazy) search, the month of September yielded the final piece of the puzzle- our drummer!

We played our first gig at a Battle of the Bands in the beginning of November- twas good too! Conor "Chevy" Chase came in on keyboard for us for a couple of tunes too. Many smiling faces left St. Olafs GAA club, although we didnt win a prize of any sort. We knew we were good, but with bands such as The Final Call on our case, we had to keep improving!

Which lead to us relentless(ish) practice weekly in Adam's Establishment and Lorcan's Ghetto Gaff - where between rocking Dónal and Lorcan faced off in epic Pro Evolution 6 matches on the PS2. Needless to say, both always put up a good fight, but even Momo couldnt change the outcome as Dónals Liverpool were regularly undone...

*no comment on Ballyboden gig*

We played a Blast eat gig in Radio City on the 17th of February (2007!). We didn’t win but we did play a solid set with 2 brand new (ie. NEVER BEFORE HEARD!) songs which went down well with the crowd. I think Adam was ditched (by majority vote) for not practicing enough soon after this.

So once again we were without a drummer, and it didn't look like a solution was going to be found... until the Epic Island of Great Adventure and Hoodlumism that is INIS OIRR ( Summer '07) provided us with all round nice guy Kieran, who wowed us with his drumstick-on-chair whacking ability. He is without doubt Templeogues finest son.

With Kieran now on board, we practiced together for a few weeks before another Radio City gig, this time a charity concert organised by the fine kids at St. Kilian's for their Peru Project. They were raising funds for a well. We played alright, but we knew we had more to give.

Next was Sophie's birthday, which was a point of clear improvement in our live playing. We really enjoyed it, even though Dónal and Kieran knew very few people and spent most of the night at the food table, devouring cocktail sausages.

*Since we're talking about food, I think Dónal should be applauded for successfully completing the 20-pizza-slice Challenge in Pizza Hut, courtesy of the buffet menu. You did the band proud.*

After the birthday party we went through another drought gig-wise, and we hadn't managed to get all 4 of us together at the same practice since November. Miraculously in the space of a magical 12 hours in the middle of January '08 we were invited to play in 3 different gigs!

Eh, yeah, so all of you who were there already know what im talking about, but im going to explain anyway.

It was a cold winters night as the 4 muskateers (and chevy) set out to Ballyboden. We arrived at half 9, as the Final Call started their set which included major crowd pleasers and their own classy numbers!

So as the RnB group did their "thang fo sho", we tuned up our guitars in the back room. As the other crowd finished their set we walked out to the side of the stage, to chants of "LEFTFOOTLUCY LEFTFOOTLUCY LEFTFOOTLUCY!!!" (which incidentally reminded me of how the crowd at the Republic of Loose's gigs always shout "LOOSE LOOSE LOOSE LOOSE!" - but enough rambling...).

When our time came, we stepped up on the stage, ready to bring an end to the night in spectacular fashion.

Our first song, Last Night by the Strokes was epic. Tight. Sexy.
Next up were "Dónals Untitled Song", Sookie in the Graveyard (Belle and Sebastian), New Slang (Shins), Know Your Onion (Shins, again!). But then you probably didnt notice, cos both our mics and one guitar amp failed during all these songs. We winged them, just about. As we did with She Loves You (Beatles).

However, miraculously with 2 songs left to go, the equipment was back on form. We played Colms "Everything" which went down really well, and was very, very epic! But could nothing could top the response we got to our last song, the concerts closing tune - Snow Patrol's Run. We nailed it.

Those last 2 songs were probably what earned us our 2nd place out 6 from the judges. Or maybe we got the sympathy vote... probably both!