Hear the Drummer (7 July 2018)
I’m cycling home from a disappointing gig in the Iveagh Gardens. It’s 11pm or so and as I near O’Connell Street I hear the drummer. He has a full drumkit set up outside Foot Locker and he’s playing solo. I have been meaning for some time to film him, and now seems like my chance. I speak with him briefly and get his agreement before racing back home to pick up my equipment, always ready in a rucksack. I return and set up as quickly as I can, tape a microphone to a lamppost and just as I manage to get the camera level on the tripod I press record as two passersby begin to dance as if to camera. To look at it now it appears set up, choreographed, but everything is chance. The two don’t know each other, but respond to each other, and Jason the drummer is improvising. It’s like a set piece, but then the moment dissipates, the beat shifts, the energy trails off, and people move on. The evening continues much like this – the intensity builds then ebbs. A cast of characters emerge during filming – three musicians with a shopping trolley (who will later appear, again by chance, in another segment of Landfall) arrive and jam; people dance, rap, sip beer, wave branches and linger, or move on. It’s a balmy evening and the drummer transforms the setting and the atmosphere. The public street becomes homely, accepting, it is reclaimed by its occupants. Playing finally ceases when Gardaí arrive and politely ask the musicians to stop – there have been complaints from nearby hotel guests. The irony of this is not lost on anyone.

Fig. 83 Hear the Drummer