Jerry Fish set to bring irreverence to Trim!

Three nights of eclectic gigs for Púca festival

Jerry Fish, when we talk, is just preparing to head to Trim to check out Trim Castle Hotel, venue this week for what the Púca festival calls ‘three wicked and unholy nights featuring his eclectic and diverse group of performers and friends’.

He is looking forward to the three nights as part of the Halloween festival in the Boyne Valley.

"It’s my first time to experiment with my two different shows, to combine them," he says.

Jerry - originally of an Emotional Fish fame before he set up his Mud Bug Club and then the Electric Sideshow – has two different style acts, a festival show and a theatre show.

"I have the Jerry Fish Electric Sideshow, then the cabaret theatre show," he explains.

The Púca show will be a burlesque style performance, with side show performances, and everyone will be dressed up.

"And we’d encourage the audience to dress up too!"

Jerry has been slowly transitioning from virtual concerts to full-on concerts since the beginning of August and notices a difference between the west of Ireland and the east coast in the approach to coming out of lockdown.

"The west is more relaxed," he says. "In Dublin, people are almost more concerned about being spied upon.

"But we all know what to do and what not to do at this stage. We are nearly two years at this now – we know how the virus is spread and the activities that spread it, and if you don’t feel well, you don’t go out."

He feels the media is a bit too obsessed on what is not happening as opposed to what is happening. "I do feel there is a media focus on what we can’t do rather than what we can do," he says.

"We run the risk of making people very nervous to go out and more cautious than necessary. I’m fully vaccinated and felt fine about that. I didn’t question it. We are the country with the highest in Europe per head of population to be vaccinated – maybe in the world.

"There’s that old saying ‘if it bleeds it leads’ regarding the media, I think we need to focus a bit more on the positive, and not be fearmongering. There’s enough of that already."

He says is has been a big time in history, but hopefully an experience we have all learned from.

"I use a line in my show – If your life is going to be saved, it’s going to be saved by a stranger. If you’re going to be murdered, it’ll probably be by someone you know!"

"I have missed my friends, but I’ve missed the strangers too, the ‘howaya’ and making new connections," he says.

"Societies and communities are built on people we don’t know as well as people we do know. I hope that we would learn to understand that rather than ending up learning to fear the stranger from it all."

Jerry believes we are doing extremely well, have been extremely cautions, and people can go out and enjoy themselves safely.

"I’ve been asked onto radio shows to talk about the collapse of the music industry," he says.

"For me, song and dance is original prayer, so I can’t see that ever collapsing. I don’t focus on music as a commodity and I don’t think most people get into music or entertainment for that reason. It’s something that’s a bit more soulful. We do it to celebrate humanity.

Jerry loves the whole idea of bringing Samhain back to Ireland but doesn’t like to use the word pagan when talking about the original festival.

"I think pagan is a word that meant godless and is a derogatory word for the people of this land, as they were actually quite spiritual people.

"But it is a great celebration of Samhain and all that. We are very good at doing horror shows and dressing up."

Performing over three nights from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st in Trim Castle Hotel, he is joined by Camille O’Sullivan on Friday night, MayKay on Saturday and Jack L on Sunday.

"I’m excited about performing with Jack L, we’ve never performed together," he says.

"I’m an entertainer, my joy is from seeing people let loose and enjoy themselves, and Samhain and Púca festival and Halloween is about that. A little bit of a carnival atmosphere. I like that old idea of a carnival in some societies as the one day of the year you could stick two fingers up at the king and not have your head chopped off, be a bit irreverent!!"