We made our second trip in a week to the Armagh area to support the Drumderg Loyalists from the border area of Keady. These guys are ‘at the borders edge’ and thus they have recently released a CD of the same title, hope the CD sells well for one of the best bands on the road.
Anyone not used to being stuck in bandit country will not be used to the hassles and heartache of organising a parade and a lot of bands like ourselves don’t know how lucky we are that are parade route and organisation only takes the matter of minutes to sort out.
The members of Drumderg have to negotiate with every Tom, Dick and Harry for this parade to happen so I must pay my utter respect to them for not giving into the republican movement.
On the way out the outskirts of the town we where escorted out as a few band buses where attached by stone throwing taigs, any chance these scumbags get to attack bands and the loyalist culture and their out in force to do so.
As usual and I am sure many people are sick of reading this next line but we arrived late!
Thus resulting in me not seeing many bands at all but the ones that where formed up ready to start where Clogher Protestant Boys, Ballyhalbert, Red Hand Defenders from Portavogie, Tamnamore, and the Ulster Grenadiers from Carrick and to be honest it was very hard for me to comment on seeing them for the matter of 30seconds or so.
On the night we played well and a big well done to our third bass drummer Bert who was on his own tonight as our regular two bass drummers where unable to participate in the parade and Bert done a great job.
Our own band walked with 14 side drummers, 24 fluters, 1 bass drummer, 3 cymbal boys, colour party of 3 and a drum major.
Below are a selection of photographs of the band in action.
