Gentle Readers,

I return, if only for a quick blog :) But I think you'll agree that the rest of the Hours have been doing an admirable job with their blogging powers. And it's my turn now... we go by age, from the youngest to the oldest, so I'll leave you to figure out where that puts me :)

It was great to be playing a gig in my home church, the Causeway Coast Vineyard, finally... It was the first of a new event called "Movemeant" that we're starting here at the church and our gig was the kick off.

But I gotta tell you about our photo shoot the day before! We've really needed to do new photos since the fabulous Timothy R. P. Cooke joined us and we finally set a date and made it happen... we'd had the idea to have the shoot on the beach near my house with everyone dressed to the nines and me sitting in a big chair like the Godfather... and we thought it might work, but we had no idea how well it would turn out! The photographer Connor was an absolute legend and totally rolled with our plans and made the day amazing... I must also mention Hannah Mathers who styled the band and extraordinary Caroline Ellis who did everyone's hair.

I have to say that the hairstyling, photoshoot, dress up part of my life is the part I dislike the most... I am an extremely normal guy most days and find it all a bit embarrassing really. But strangely enough, I had a brilliant time at this shoot and it was a great build up for the gig ahead.

And so into the breach we went, with amps set to stun and more PA gear than anone could ever imagine in the church :) We actually used the drum booth to build barriers around my amp and Steve's amp so that we wouldn't kill anyone with rock n roll :)

The gig was great and the crowd was amazing... loads of people turned up and everyone rocked away. It's always a bit strange to play in your hometown, especially as I live here to escape my rock n roll life, so I can surf, play golf and raise my kids in a quiet town... but everyone made it so special for us and it was cool to do what we do with our closest friends about 5 minutes from my house.

It capped off a great week with the Hours in Ireland and I'm sure it won't be the last one... Here's a quick preview of the photo shoot:




(Onehundredhours 2008)

And so I must leave you now, and turn it over to Timothy Cooke for a Leeland gig blog.

Be well,
Tre



Hey everyone,


Its great to be back writing the blog. It's now my 11th gig with the band and I am still loving it so much. This gig was a very special one for us because we were playing with an amazing band called Leeland and also a band called Compass from norway, so it was a very cool one for us to do. Check them out.

We started with a sound check, very chilled and laid back and then went from there to have something to eat with the Leeland guys. This was really cool because just to let you know if you are not in a band you don't really get that much time to chill out with other bands when your playing with them as everything is always so rushed, so it was really good to get to know them.

We then moved on from there to discover a huge children's play area, you know the kind of huge cube structure with netting all around it and lots of slides and ball pits its was so good. So me, Steve and Johnny had a huge game of 'it' in there for quite a long time and the rest of the band was just watching and laughing and wondering why half of the band are little kids.

Then it was time for us as a band to just chill out, pray and spend time with other which was really good we always love it when we do this and I can't explain how peaceful it is.

Then it was time for another brilliant gig from the Hours, its getting good on stage now Johnny, Steve, Tori and Mark are all letting go of themselves and performing like I've never seen them before and Tre is just looking really relaxed on stage and really just enjoying being in a band and just loving it. The gig on the whole was performance wise wicked but there were a few mistakes no names mentioned, and also it wasn't helped by the fact that The Knipper had spilt has finger opening and nearly died or that's what he said anyway.



(Blood on the strings, or "How the Knipper almost died")

We all came off feeling tired but like we had done something special tonight and went up in the balcony to watch the amazing Leeland (you really, really should check them out).

Thank you so much to everyone who was there and also everyone who helped.
It was a great evening.

And also thank you Philip Simpson because you are awesome.

This is me over and out.

Tim Cooke


(The Hours, Compass and Leeland)