This is the first time we have played in Atlanta for some Seven years and as such, is also the last time I have seen my Aunt Fern. Also at the show is Martin from the British Consulate here who informs us that Ireland has Eliminated Pakistan from the Cricket world cup: Cricket rarely gets a mention on ESPN. A warm crowd in a great venue – The Red Light Café. We make our way into the night after the gig for we have two days to travel the 800 miles to Houston, Texas.

Tuesday, 20th March.

Today’ journey is a comparatively easy three-hundred miles, so we afford ourselves the luxury of a lunch at Antlers in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana before heading off to McGonigles Mucky Duck in Houston, Texas. Rusty is in ebullient mood after St. Patrick’s day and we have a full house including my folks who have travelled from California and Lenny and Brett who have come all the way from Baton Rouge so a great night was had by all.

There is little I can say about Austin, and Houston for that matter, which I haven’t said before. The music is great everywhere, Griff, Susan and Christopher are in fine form and the Austin Motel has been done up to an even stranger level than before.

Thursday, 22 March.

MacHenry’s on West Magnolia in Fort Worth has live music seven nights a week thanks to its owner, John Walker, himself a singer songwriter. The protagonists for our concert tonight however are Craig Scotland from Dunfermline and Deanna Smith, both of whom are fine musicians. Deanna sings solo and with a group called Jiggernaut while Craig is the excellent bodhranist with Shift who was our support tonight.

This, our final weekend of this grand tour takes us to Tulsa in the great state of Oklahoma which celebrates its centenary this year. And it is with great celebration that we find that during the intervening six years since we have last played at the Performing Arts Center in downtown Tulsa, there has been an addition of several bars and restaurants within two blocks of our hotel.

Perhaps the most notable of these is McNellies, an Irish bar/restaurant boasting scores of draught beers, which partially sponsors the Celtic Music Series here in Tulsa. This series has run with great success for many years bringing top-class music into the area and this is reflected in the distances some of the audience travel to come here. This year’s series included the Dave Munnelly Band, the Barra MacNeils, Lunasa and ourselves. All of the staff both from the series and the theatre were top-class.

Sunday, 25th March.

Our final concert is four hundred miles to the east of Tulsa in Memphis, Tennessee on the banks of the Mississippi River. En Route we pass through both Muskogee and the state of Arkansas. The Memphis College of Art stands in Overton Park, which, it would appear, holds a very popular transvestite flea market every Saturday/Sunday afternoon. There are also ample volleyball, Frisbee, and drum jam opportunities for the more conservative consumer. It has been some years since we have played here for Robert Campbell and it is a great pleasure to finish our spring tour here. After the gig we retire to Bosco’s Beer restaurant with Vincent the indoor footballer from Dunnoon for a few pints in the balmy Tennessee evening.

There is only one way to get home from Memphis and that is by Riverboat. Luckily Deirdre, Mick, and Eamonn from Solas are taking the same boat for a couple of hours which affords us the opportunity to supp a couple of mint juleps while Big River boat Captain Robanelli drives us up the river.(Shirt over heid of course).

It is great to meet your pals on the road and everything is rosy as the sun sets in the West, Martin Hayes silhouetted before it, water-skiing back from a gig in France.

Once more The Batties would like to extend their congratulations both to Hibernian Football club and to Grandmasterflash.