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As promised, The Black Donnellys are back.
Singing for a record.
[reporter] A local Irish pub has carved its name in the record books.
[broadcaster] They set the record for the longest continuous gig.
And we smashed through the world records.
[broadcaster] More than 360 hours of live music.
-You set a Guinness World Record. -I have the other world record
for the longest guitar playing, five days.
[broadcaster] They'll keep on playing for however long.
[static buzzes]
Well, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive,
"You ain't seen nothing yet."
Cheers, sham.
[lively rock music]
♪ Headed down south To the land of the pines ♪
♪ I'm thumbing my way Into North Caroline ♪
♪ Staring up the road ♪
♪ Pray to God I see headlights ♪
♪ Made it down the coast in 17 hours ♪
♪ Picking me a bouquet Of dogwood flowers ♪
♪ I'm a hoping for Raleigh ♪
♪ I can see my baby tonight ♪
♪ So rock me, mama Like a wagon wheel ♪
♪ Rock me, mama Any way you feel ♪
♪ Hey, hey, mama, rock me ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, mama, rock me ♪
We'd like to introduce the band.
-How you doing, I'm Dave. -I'm Dave, how are you?
-It's great seeing you. -And we are The Black Donnellys.
We've been playing together for 12 years.
We played all over the world, every country in Europe.
We went across the States, as far as Southeast Asia.
-Every county in Ireland as well. -Every county in Ireland.
More than once.
We have two world records.
And the first world record was Dave's,
a marathon guitar playing, 114 hours.
Second world record was the longest concert ever held,
which was 372 hours.
And this one will be our third world record.
[upbeat folk music]
[woman] When they first did the world records,
they came up with it and everyone got involved in it,
and then they were talking again,
and they were saying, "How are we gonna beat this one?
How are we gonna beat the next one?"
And he says, "We're going to go
and do every, every state in America."
You know, once again they're embarking on something
that's just, y'know, it's larger than life.
I was like, just even the logistics of that,
what are you talking about?
That's, that's--
I mean, I've covered in Ireland
in the back of the van with 'em, and it's hard work.
Y'know what I'm saying?
People only talk about doing what they're doing,
y'know, most people won't get up and do it.
World records aren't easy,
that's why they're called world records, only a few people have them.
We wanted to see the States, we wanted to tour the States.
Looked up the record, it was 50 gigs, 50 states in 50 days.
It's like, I can do this, we can do this, no problem.
That they pitched this very crazy idea
of doing this Guinness World Record breaking tour
of hitting every state with at least one gig
in less than 40 days.
Nobody has ever done that before.
No individual, no group, no artist.
Okay, here's the idea,
we're gonna start in our home venue, our home ground,
which is Ri Ra Las Vegas in the Mandalay Bay.
[Dave] And we're going to end in Arlene's Grocery in New York City.
And every single state in between, every nook and clanny and…
A clanny? [laughs]
A clanny, did I say clanny?
[laughs] Nook and cranny.
[John] Yeah, I mean, you know we're set to go here
in less than an hour, and we just need to know from your team
exactly how we're supposed to document all this
and all the things we've been talking about for a while.
Guinness did not confirm this world record before we started.
The big questions that we've had from them
is what exactly constitutes a gig,
how many people have to be at every venue,
and how exactly do they want us to keep track of this,
so we make sure that we actually earn this world record
at the end of this monumental journey.
We were on the phone
about four or five months prior to this putting together,
ringing the venues, "How you doing, this is what we're doing,"
introducing ourselves,
telling them exactly what we were looking for.
The Daves have taken an incredible amount of time
to stitch this thing together. It's a dream, it's a dream that they have,
but it's an incredible amount of territory to cover,
60 places in 40 days.
That takes an incredible amount of planning and logistics.
I got this, I got this!
That's how you pack, and these are very essential, aren't they?
-[Aisha] Okay, throw those in! -[Dave] Okay.
When Dave mentions a new world record, I do cry a little bit inside.
[Aisha] Oh, Ziggy, do you get sad when the suitcase comes out?
The first time we had been together a year,
and it was for five days and it was a long five days.
He was obviously 24 hours during that time.
And after that I said to him, if you do another one,
do it shorter.
But then he went on to 21 days,
and then the next one obviously was this one.
-Can I have one of the-- -[Dave] Who's your favorite?
-Daddy. -That's what I want to hear.
-Mommy. -Mommy, Mommy.
Mommy be your favorite for the next five weeks.
Some people turn around and say, "How do you do that?
How, he's gone all the time or he travels." It's a job.
You just accept it, it's our way of life.
If you don't work towards something together,
it's not gonna work.
All of this. [laughing]
We had no idea what we were in for.
We thought we did, but we didn't.
[Dave] All right, folks, getting ready to start off here.
First, we'd like to thank everybody
for turning up today for our played gig.
[cheering]
[Dave] Yeah, it's great to see such a show of support here.
[cheering]
[Dave] We are very, very grateful, so thank you for that.
Okay, and we think we're ready,
we're not actually sure whether we are or not.
Um, all right, okay, let's do this and see what happens!
Thank you.
Wanna see your hands going up, up, up, up, up, up!
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] The launch was great, our friends, our families were down.
People from Vegas and Ri Ra looked after everyone.
It was a great vibe and we felt really good
and was thinking okay, this is the start,
let's go up from here.
Stuff I don't want is that we wasn't ready and we knew it.
We were looking down from the stage.
The driver was still sitting in the bar going like,
"We don't have a van."
[Dave] We don't have an RV.
We already started, we kicked off the record, you can't stop,
if you stop, you've lost the record.
We were standing at the car, and you just like,
"Fuck this, let's just go."
[Dave] We drove in my car for the first state,
ya know, just to get the job done 'cause the show must go on.
Oh, yeah!
[all cheering]
[Dave] Anyway, eventually we got it sorted out,
so at least we know then that we've got wheels to move on, so.
[crowd chattering]
Now that's a hectic day.
[upbeat acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] We're sitting the back of this RV.
[Dave] Never been in an RV before. -[Dave] Ever.
And we picked the bedroom at the back of the RV to sleep on,
we thought we were being smart.
The RV, and I'm not joking you, it was going like this.
And I was going up and down, bouncing off the mattress.
An hour and a half and all I heard was,
"This is fucking hell!"
[laughing]
[Dave] We have six weeks of this shit.
Yeah, right there and then I said to myself…
I'm going home.
What the fuck have we done.
[laughing]
[snoring]
[coughing]
-[cashier] Just that for you? -Yeah, that's it.
[cashier] It's $1.89.
I'm loving this.
[cheering]
[Dave] Something it's all about,
our new world record attempt.
We started it yesterday in Las Vegas, and it's been a bit of a, an adventure
but it's a, thankfully I'm glad to say
that we've made it here and mostly in one piece.
[sirens wailing]
Our primary driver for the RV, Chad, slipped and broke his toe
but it kind of looks like he's dislocated it.
We are on our way over to help him out.
It's 10 minutes til five now so we've gotta,
we have to be in Carmel playing at 7 p.m.
And Carmel is 78 miles away, so…
Now I'm backtracking, which we're gonna do,
we're now going south to Carmel to turn around
and go north to Portland, Oregon, tonight.
We get Chad checked out, leave him here in Mountain View,
and pick him up on the way from the second gig
that we're doing at seven o'clock in Carmel.
[man] They got the X-ray ordered,
so they're looking at like, an hour and a half, two hours tops
and they'll get me in.
-[crew member] Okay so… -And see how the X-ray goes.
[crew member] We gotta leave you here and then come back?
Probably, sounds like it, right?
[Dave] Best of luck.
[slow light rock music]
A mutual friend told me that they were doing
this world record tour, said I could sponsor you at this level.
It was friends asking for support,
it was something I believed in, so… Easy.
[Dave] We were very lucky to have a hotel winery
as our main sponsor.
[Dave] We loaded the van up.
They gave us lots of red wine.
And a glass of red wine at the end of the night
doesn't hurt anybody.
But two or three bottles might.
[laughing]
♪ Can't see out here ♪
[Dave] It was three and a half grand for four of us to fly to Alaska.
You would have to have them specific flights
because you would have to fly in, do your thing,
jump back on the van and get out of there.
It's so far away, the elements are against you.
The chances of something going wrong, was so, so critical.
It had to go smooth.
We're due to fly to Anchorage at 5:30 in the morning.
The body language of you coming off the phone
and looking over without any-- I don't know,
but we've been playing so long together,
and I looked and it's like, the gig's pulled, it's not happening.
"Good morning, Dave, this is Jeanne.
I'm out of town, back Tuesday.
I'm sorry but the schedule change does not work for me.
We have people coming Tuesday to make the place festive.
To change the day two days prior is not good.
Thank you."
[laughing]
Six hours before we're due to fly,
she sends me this and says "This doesn't work for me."
That was bad news.
Our flights are booked.
We're spending 3,500 dollars on flights, what'd we do here?
[light acoustic guitar music]
♪ Ah huh, ah huh ♪
♪ Yes, I'm ordinary now ♪
♪ Ah huh, ah huh ♪
♪ Yes, I'm ordinary ♪
♪ Three o'clock again And time won't seem to end ♪
♪ As I'm sifting Through the Sunday papers ♪
♪ I'm turning off the light ♪
♪ As a neighbor starts a fight ♪
♪ There's always Something wrong with them ♪
♪ So I turn off the light And I close my eyes ♪
♪ And try to find myself Another concrete placement ♪
♪ He was seen again With the gavel number 10 ♪
♪ Another travesty ♪
♪ Fate is twisted down ♪
♪ There's an ordinary world In an ordinary place ♪
♪ And I'm ordinary now ♪
♪ Yes, I'm ordinary now ♪
[pilot] Alaska, flight 101 to Anchorage,
three hours, eight minutes, 45 degrees and partly cloudy.
If you catch a little nap, I'll give you a general wake-up call.
So we were up at about 4 a.m., we get on the plane…
Hungover.
Hungover, I fell asleep on the plane. I wanted to be woken up.
You're singing U2 in about 10 minutes.
Next thing I know I'm clapping me hands,
walking up the middle of the plane.
-[light hearted music] -Lovely.
[Dave] Thank you.
♪ I have kissed ♪
♪ Honey lips ♪
And it had all these old people
with their eyes like this half asleep going,
"Who are these assholes?"
[laughing]
-It's a dream, don't worry, it's great. -It was a nightmare.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[plane engine whirring]
[Dave] People who live at the Pioneer Home here in Anchorage
were treated to a concert today
that could be part of a new Guinness World Record.
Trending this morning, getting a gig in all 50 states.
And so The Black Donnelly band is originally from Ireland.
Yesterday, the duo gave a surprise concert to the people
who live at the Pioneer Home here in Anchorage.
[Dave] When we started out, we wanted to play in prisons,
we wanted to play at hospitals,
we wanted to play anywhere that wasn't-- was off the beaten track.
Nursing home we wasn't really expecting.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] No, we're doing it for free.
[man] Really?
Yeah, if you have any money you want to give us,
come up, empty your pockets.
[Dave] It was Mother's Day when we got there.
I was at a nursing home
and people had dementia and Alzheimer's,
same as my mother,
and we got there and that killed me. Inside I was absolutely dying.
Growing up in Ireland then, my folks instilled in me,
always have respect for your elders, ya know?
And here ya are, in this nursing home now,
and all these people mightn't have anybody anymore, ya know,
and when you're playing to these people,
music seems to bring them out themselves.
[cheerful acoustic guitar music]
It's weird when you play in places like that
because you do-- you get more out of it than they do.
I know it sounds weird, but you do.
When you're doing a whole, "Oh, you're doing an American tour,"
everyone thinks it's rock and roll,
and it's like "You're playing New York,
Chicago, you're playing this,"
this is the real life of the level that we play at.
[Dave] I need dancers into the middle, please!
[light acoustic guitar music]
[all cheering]
[Dave] Thank you very much indeed, folks!
[woman] They're on a mission to break a world record
for the fastest time to play a small venue concert
in each of the 50 states.
[Dave] After losing the gig in Alaska
and then gaining the nursing home,
we did it, we felt great after that,
and then we got the news then that,
um, Guinness had recognized the attempt.
We got approved for Guinness World Record, yeah, which is,
it's been hanging over our heads for a while.
Just waiting and waiting to see if it can be all official now.
[Dave] Now the game was on.
[airplane engine whirring]
[funk rock music]
♪ Somewhere ♪
♪ This road has got To lead to somewhere ♪
♪ I know it's waiting for me out there ♪
♪ Sometimes it's like The road to nowhere ♪
♪ Ah, cause life is what you make it ♪
♪ Oh, whoa ♪
♪ We got to step right off and take it ♪
♪ Oh, whoa ♪
♪ And all that's left is hesitation ♪
♪ Oh, whoa ♪
♪ Ride on ♪
♪ My soul's in burning flames ♪
♪ Just another yesterday ♪
♪ Oh, whoa ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah Life is what you make it ♪
♪ Oh, whoa ♪
So a flight from Idaho Falls to Honolulu.
And we're connecting in Salt Lake City.
We turn up for our flight, everything is great.
Walked, we're waiting there.
We go through the whole security thing.
We're waiting to go to the gate.
"Ladies and gentlemen, there's a problem with the plane,
there's gonna be a delay of three hours."
'Cause The Black Donnellys are near the fucking thing.
They said it's gonna be about a two hour wait.
-Uh… -This flight?
This flight, so, in that case, we're not gonna make
-our connected flight to Honolulu. -[Dave] What're we gonna do?
[Dave] It was a late night.
Straight onto Google Maps, it was a three hour drive.
Hey, Jesse, how are ya?
Do you have the car keys for the SUV handy?
-Jesse, get out of bed! -Get outta bed.
They canceled the flight here,
we need a ride to Salt Lake City, sorry.
Yeah, can one of you guys, very quickly,
come over and pick us up at the airport please,
and take us to Salt Lake City?
Not flying, we're driving.
-[laughing] -Ugh.
Ooh, getting hungry as well
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] Fast forward to 20 minutes later, we're in the SUV.
It's a three hour drive to Salt Lake City.
We get there.
Oh, Honolulu, I see it there.
We barely make it onto the plane.
We get onto the plane.
-[Dave] Just happy to be here. -Really happy that we made it.
-That we're gonna make it, that one. -It's gonna be a good gig.
[airplane engine whirring]
[ukulele music]
-[woman] Aloha. -[laughing]
-Aloha. -[laughing]
Aloha.
[Dave] Draw and run, go, go, go.
When you see a place like this…
Fantastic.
From a roadhouse bar…
-To Honolulu. -To Honolulu, man.
-[Dave] How many states we've been in? -[Dave] This our 10th and 11th show.
[Dave] Our 10th state and our 11th show, okay.
[Dave] The show must go on.
That has to happen, every gig has to happen.
And whatever's being thrown in the way
we just have to keep kicking it.
Hawaiians have a word for that,
about getting over things and moving forward: imua.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] Everybody all step down, come up!
Oh!
Here we go, hey!
[all cheering]
Another round for you folks and to our fantastic dancers as well!
-Hey! Hey! -[all cheering]
[heartbeat flat lining]
We're following a breaking news on Hawaii's big island
where there's just been an eruption at the killer way of volcano.
[newscaster] Lava's skyrocketing 300 feet in the air
as it devours everything in its path.
Up here in the helicopter, you can really get an idea
of the scope of the destruction below.
You don't see any firefighters down there because there is nothing they can do.
And then the volcano erupted.
-A vol-fucking… -[both] Cano.
[pilot] I would like to offer anybody to get off
if you would like to, the cabin door is still open.
We do ask that you please remain close by.
You're at gate number 21.
[Dave] I just wanna fly somewhere.
[laughing]
I just wanna be moving.
Let's just get this buggie up in the air, will you?
[laughing]
We could potentially miss our connecting flight,
LA to Salt Lake City,
and yeah, and then we're just going to…
Start cryin'.
[Dave] We thought we were absolutely screwed
because it was so hard even to just to coordinate
the flights to get us in and get us out of here again
to get to the next gig, to stick to the time constraints.
Our tour manager Simon was ah, I think he was trying to work miracles.
He was trying to get us onto flights here and there and everywhere.
[Dave] I thought he was gonna have a nervous breakdown.
[Dave] We were switching,
we were going to jump from one plane to another,
I think we're gonna get a helicopter and a boat,
a couple of skateboards and we're off.
Once we could get back onto land, we can make stuff happen,
but like when you're on an island, you're surrounded by water.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[airplane engine whirring]
[Dave] How ya feeling today now?
Um, decidedly uh, up and a little bit dead.
[laughing]
I was starting to feel a little bit deranged,
emotions were going all over the place.
I was, I was angry, I was sad,
I was giggling to myself for no fucking reason.
So the wheels were starting to come off a little bit.
Things are kind of…
[Dave] Up and down?
They changing as we go along.
One minute you feel okay, the next minute you,
I, I find myself just wanting to lie down and weep.
Cities, states, we're just going in and coming out
and it's just like what?
Just get in, play, oh, yeah, here we go,
diddly, diddly, diddly, back on again, and I was…
That's it, I'm fucking out of here!
-[Dave] Want me to open the door for ya? -Yeah.
I can't get the door.
After a lot of madness had gone on that first little chapter,
we finally got a couple of hours to have off, to relax.
[classical music]
Getting the uh, getting the couple of hours off,
and seriously only a few hours like…
-Made a big difference. -Huge difference.
[upbeat rock music]
Utah!
♪ If we called a weekend To put it on my party face ♪
-♪ Night on the town ♪ -Yeehaw!
♪ Is what we need ♪
♪ Wearing our glad rags ♪
♪ And step into a lively place ♪
♪ And men go with cocktails And disco freaks ♪
♪ We can dance the way we want ♪
♪ Dance the way we feel ♪
♪ Listen to the rhythm Starting to feel ♪
♪ And this rhythm's gonna catch ya ♪
♪ When you're on the floor with me ♪
♪ Dance the way you want Dance the way you feel ♪
♪ Listen to the rhythm Starting to feel ♪
[Mike] Hello, this is Mike with Bank of America,
you're account's dropped below the $25 minimum balance.
Please deposit additional funds to avoid potential overdraft fees.
And then, we run out of money.
We're a touring band, you got record companies,
you got agencies, picking up the bill, that's different.
When you're doing it yourself, all expenses are on you.
It's a serious, serious commitment to do.
And when it starts going wrong, fuck, it goes wrong.
[Dave] We had a gas guzzling RV,
we had to figure out where we're gonna sleep,
and we had to have accommodations along the way as well.
Talk about pouring out your money.
We had 10 mouths to feed, and everyone was looking to us.
Apart from doing the gigs and all of the preparation that we went through
and all of the ups and downs,
man, it was getting, it was getting, it was falling to shit.
[narrator] These people are preparing for an important step,
a commission to citizenship.
So during the tour, I was waiting for my permanent resident card.
I'd applied, it takes-- it's an arduous process,
it used to take about six months, now it takes nearly a year.
[man] It really doesn't matter which end of that border you're coming through,
you have the same hoops to jump through,
whether you're coming from overseas or Canada.
Um, very expensive through attorneys and getting everything
and all of the paperwork has to be done just like anyone else.
You could have a very nervous few years
as an Irish person in America
when you don't have the right documentation.
You're there by right,
but you don't know if you're gonna be allowed to stay there
'cause also it's stressful, if you go home for a family occasion,
you might not get back into the country.
And these are Irish people, good tax-paying Irish people,
these aren't illegals.
I hear right now we have some people in the White House
that they almost want to make everybody believe
that immigration is a problem for us to solve,
when actually immigration is an opportunity
for America to seize.
It was a long process but one well worth it for me.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[airplane engine whirring]
It was a sunny sky, and as we drove up to Montgomery…
The heavens opened.
This is an Irish summer, look.
There you go, you got the water,
we got some, we got some lightning.
-[thunder crackles] -And we got that!
We were set up to play right here, on the bandstand here.
-Uh… -Down in Texas, baby!
[laughing]
-Oh, yeah! -[Dave] Normally very picturesque,
but wouldn't you know, if The Black Donnellys' touring a place,
it goes to shit. [laughing]
[Dave] Every venue that we went to
when we're on the way, we'd give them a courtesy call.
[Dave] I just had your date from the start and that was today, y'know?
-I didn't have another date for you. -[woman] That's in the email…
And I'm looking at the email now and it's saying
we'll hit Arkansas approximately the 28th or the 29th of May.
And she said, "Well, we're not open on them days."
I said, "What about the Tuesday beforehand?"
and she thought I meant the Tuesday afterward.
There's no, uh, contract signed, there's no nothing, and it's like
"Oh, yeah, that doesn't suit me, I'm not doing it, yeah, no."
And here's where we cry.
[laughing]
Oh, man.
Lady gone, "No, no, that doesn't work for me,"
she absolutely just turned, ya know, there and then.
We got you guys scheduled, we promoted big time
and here we are we got a power outage in downtown Sioux Falls.
This is every day, nothing changes.
I think God wakes up in the morning and go
"What'll I do to these fuckers today?"
The wheels were well and truly coming off.
[Dave groans]
[man] Can you patch it?
We'll see how far down the road we can get with this.
Hopefully it'll get us 40 miles back to the hotel.
Everything seemed to start of kind of crumble, ya know.
Ah, we were having problems with our RV at that time as well.
We tried to get a new one, we were denied that.
One stage we were playing for food.
Yeah, at one stage we were playing for food,
just to feed the crew and hopefully sell a few CDs
so that we could get gas.
Ah, close, you fuck.
We've 25…
We've 25… [laughing]
We've 25 dollars left in our account
for two fucking weeks and we've three weeks to go.
[laughing]
We really were starting to feel like "Okay, we shouldn't be doing this."
We were in dire straights and we had to think of something.
What I wanted to say was we do have a new GoFundMe page,
which is, has been, it is live right now.
We're looking for support from all our fans
and all people that know us.
[Dave] We are The Black Donnellys.
We exude resilience, we get the job done,
we're pretty proud of what we can do,
and we have to start asking people for money,
and that did not feel good.
[Dave] It felt pretty shit, to be honest with you.
-But it absolutely 100% saved… -Saved our bacon.
[upbeat folk music]
[Dave] Take it away!
[Dave] At this stage…
At the time, $200, $300, $400 made a huge difference.
Yeah, monster!
We now need to do a Kansas gig and a Missouri gig
in order to stay on track on our schedule.
We would play here and the SUV would take off
and go somewhere else.
We'd be drive somewhere else to the gig.
Everyone was phoning each other.
I'm trying to get a couple of gigs tonight.
No.
[Dave] One, two, three, four!
[Dave] The support has been fantastic, but we do need that support ongoing.
[Dave] It was like a soap opera, they would watch it
and watched what we were doing every day,
and everybody came to each day with us.
It was all the well-wishing as well that we got on.
And all the positivity online and people saying,
"Keep going, lads, you're gonna get there."
We had huge support from people, that really propelled us on.
We're going to the post office. We got our CDs and our T-shirts.
So we're mailing these to…
-All the lovely people… -Our GoFundMe supporters.
[Dave] Go!
[Dave] We're doing something nobody else has ever done.
That's the thing you gotta keep in your minds, nobody has done this.
And we were all in it.
We were all in.
How you doing, folks?
We just coming into Clinton to play at Boxcars.
We got a police escort into the town here,
in front of us we got the fire engine
and we have the local police car as well.
Um, get a load of this.
[people talking over each other]
-[police sirens wailing] -[Dave] Woo, woo!
-[Dave] This is a… -[Dave] Woo woo!
-[crew member] Dave is like a little boy. -[Dave] Woo.
This is the first time we've ever gotten an escort,
this is cool, really cool.
[Dave] Woo!
[all laughing]
[siren wailing]
[Dave] God bless the forces in Clinton!
-[car horn honking] -I say hit it, don't be afraid of it!
[lively Celtic guitar music]
[crowd cheering]
[Dave] When you get a chance to actually play your own style of gig
and your own way to play it where it's a particular event
where people actually come to see you play,
it's not just your-- getting your ego off
or you're getting your balls off about it,
there's something, that's what the magic is.
That's what you want it to be.
And to play in front of people who listen to what you're playing,
there's no better feeling.
[Dave] And when you stand on a stage for two hours
playing what you want to play,
nothing else matters.
[cheering]
Oh, that was fucking fantastic.
Thank you very much!
So we had a really good gig tonight,
what a great town.
The crowd here were just fantastic.
We sold an awful lot of merch and CDs,
everyone knows our songs.
It's given us a little bit of a lift tonight
because we've been struggling.
We haven't been able to show, like, our full prowess
as a band as we know we can be, y'know?
And tonight was a pure…
[Dave] It was injection tonight.
They want to hear what you're doing, we're not background,
we're not trying to force us on them, and it's a gig,
it's what you want.
[Dave] Being a musician is tough.
Now there's a lot of people that think that, they look at it
and they see the whole grand ol' "You're there, singing my songs."
They don't see what goes behind that.
"On the road" literally means on the road.
People don't get that when you're talking about touring.
I've been on the road for three years means I'm on the road for three years,
I've been looking at the road all that time.
From one place to the next, to the next
that's really actually physically demanding.
[man] You always kind of tick the boxes,
look after your voice when you're doing seven nights a week,
and that's only one show a night.
Not three or four a day,
which are what the boys are doing, y'know?
Just with the frustration of the traveling getting in,
y'know, someone wants to sleep and someone can't sleep.
Someone hasn't washed and this that,
and just the smallest things can be magnified.
[woman] The pursuit of the American dream is similar
to the pursuit of the musician's dream.
It can be tough out there
and it can be lonely, and you miss home,
you miss your family, your support network.
So you really seek that connection and that comfort with your audience.
We've walked into bars where you thought you could try it
and people go like, "Who are these jokers?"
At the end of it, the whole place is rocking.
Our driver Chad who's asleep out there now cause he's…
-[Chad] No, I'm right here. -Oh, hey, oh, he's here!
[all laughing]
Thank God I didn't call him a wanker!
[laughing]
[man] When someone comes to a Black Donnellys concert,
they're all speaking the same language
and their borders get broken down, and they're unified.
Music doesn't have a color, music doesn't have race,
music doesn't have any restrictions.
It's for everybody, it's free.
The Black Donnellys are inspiring for me.
They've been at this a long time
and they're always taking it to the next level.
These guys are infectious with their passion
so it's something that, you meet them,
you see them perform, and it inspires you.
[slow rock music]
♪ This life can make you feel Like you're in a battle ♪
[Dave] We seemed to come to a hump and it's like, okay…
[both] We're leveling off.
-[Dave] We were hitting the East Coast. -[Dave] Travel times were shorter.
We were getting the chance to go sleep at night time
and wake up refreshed the next day.
♪ I only believe it's through when ♪
♪ We rise up and never give in ♪
♪ They knock us down But we'll get up and find a strand ♪
♪ That keeps us living ♪
We were starting to get rid of some CDs and T-shirts which was helping us along.
The GoFundMe was working.
We got money, we can buy gas, yeah!
There seemed to be a huge injection of positivity.
♪ You faced it all For the sake of our name ♪
♪ We are fighters ♪
[Dave] We're on the border now and we're heading south.
We're at the furthest northern point
that we're gonna be and then we're gonna head south now.
[Dave] That bridge over there goes into Canada, right?
[Dave] Yep, means you can't come back.
No, not until…
-The green card. -Until the green card comes through.
Because they fly the flag over there, they think what that way, that way,
and the way they start up and less than a mile away,
we got this.
I'm baffled at that, man, that's ridiculous.
Detroit!
♪ I'm way giving up, giving in ♪
♪ There's no disguise You fix your eyes ♪
♪ And destiny repays the courage ♪
♪ Burn it slow ♪
♪ We are fighters ♪
♪ When the line starts to roll ♪
♪ When the shackles of fear Can concern us no more ♪
♪ We are fighters ♪
♪ Better than before ♪
♪ We are fighters ♪
[Dave] We're doing something that nobody else has ever done,
and you got six or seven other people with ya
that have never done it either.
We had given everybody time if they wanted to walk,
and if you wanted to go, go.
-And everybody stayed. -[Dave] Everybody stayed.
That's the positive end of it, humor's great,
and drinking helped a lot.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] The Grand Ole Opry.
The most famous place for country music and, well, in the world.
There was an energy in there where it hit you straight away.
[Dave] Seeing it was like "Whoa," because…
Listening to all this stuff by people like Bill Monroe and George Jones,
right down there, and obviously Hank Williams,
that they've all played there. This started radio music.
For me it's absolute jealousy that I want to be playing it.
I want to play that place.
When you stand on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry
and look out and you go like,
"Oh God, what must it be like to play this place and fill it."
[Dave] The good thing or the bad thing about us
and what we do is that we can play in a really, really cool gig,
in a theater sold out and it goes very well,
and people are well-wishing us all the way,
they're buying our CDs and our merch
and you come out of place feeling 100 foot high.
And then you could be playing in a dive bar the following night.
Y'know, and you're looking at each other going,
"Where did it all go wrong?"
[Dave] The other stuff, the pub stuff, you're a background to a party.
And that's okay, I'm not knocking it,
we've made a living out of it, that's cool.
But just to be able to do a gig like that
and play your own stuff, that's your dream as a musician.
[Dave] Well, maybe one day, we'll get the opportunity to play in there.
For now, it's been a huge honor. A huge honor.
Back to it, yeah? Let's get back in the van,
start playing "Wagon Wheel" for someone else.
-Yeah. -[high paced country music]
[Dave] We have a financial struggle going on.
-The numbers don't add up. -No.
So we have to do something.
The carpet cleaning facility.
We really needed that gig.
There was $1000 on it
and we weren't even sure if that gig was going to count,
but we did it anyway.
And not many people showed up,
but my God, the hospitality them people showed us
was second to none.
They made a banana pudding or a banana bread, didn't they?
Yeah, all real sort of food
and they really, really were excellent people.
I know it's cliché, but it's all about freedom.
I mean, even look at us,
I mean, we're a carpet cleaning company
and then all of a sudden we have a concert.
We have the freedom to do that.
[Dave] Makes us sound better, folks, when you clap.
[Dave] Okay.
-[clapping] -[Dave] Hey!
That's something about the United States, it was founded on immigrants,
on people from everywhere.
We're all the same, everybody should try to get along
as much as they can.
Most people that come to the United States,
to me, they have a drive.
Wherever they were from, they wanted to do better.
They thought the United States was a better place to be
and just the drive to get from where they are
to where they are now took a lot.
[Dave] That gig really saved us in that stretch.
[thunder crashing]
[news anchor] At four o'clock, we officially have
our first named storm of the season.
[broadcaster] Alberto hitting the Florida panhandle
with wind gusts of up to 59 miles per hour.
Governors in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi
declaring states of emergency.
34 million under flood or flash flood watches.
Tornadoes, a possibility.
[announcer] Delta has issued a travel waiver for airports.
-That's where we're going. -[Dave] Yeah.
At this stage of the game we were thinking, "Okay, we're good to go here."
Gigs are working, whatever it is,
it's all cool and then we sat down for breakfast
and then we see the news.
So we're actually going down that line exactly
where this storm is.
Mother Nature is a bitch.
Every time something went good,
something shit would happen. [laughing]
Can we be in agreement that we're,
that what we're doing and what we set out to do is a little silly,
but we're not going to do anything dangerous.
And Simon was all, "We can't be going there,"
and I, "Oh, shut up, we gotta go do this."
[dramatic classical music]
Appears we're in a tornado watch right now.
Central Alabama until midnight.
Still riding down on the eastern front of this storm coming in.
[Dave] Made it.
Alive!
[imitating guitar]
[narrator] These communities pose an urgent question to America.
Could these people of many nations
become a part of the American way of life?
We have come because we have heard about the pig.
What every wave of immigration goes through
is "How do I stay myself and become something completely new?"
♪ Gonna move into the country ♪
♪ Gonna eat me lots of peaches ♪
To set up shop here, set up family,
build community here, that's a very difficult thing.
[Teresa] You don't know the culture, you don't know the traditions.
You don't know how to get a job, where to look.
Everything is different.
They'd be great with beer.
-Fucking anything's great with beer. -Yeah, yeah.
When you go to America, you don't know,
like, you know, how you're going to be received. Ya know?
[Dave] America is so diverse,
terrain-wise, people-wise, cultural-wise.
And they got alligators.
It's like Jurassic Park.
[laughing]
[Dave] We're in Gator World!
[man] What's nice is the positivity you get,
the fact that people consistently will try and go,
we'll get there, don't worry, it's going to work out.
Take our own people, for example, from Ireland.
They could do one thing in this country,
they couldn't do back home.
-That's exactly… -To be Irish.
That's exactly it! You can do it here.
-[Dave] You couldn't be Irish at home. -[man] I'm always an Irishman.
I'm always gonna be an Irishman.
I'm living in America,
and I'm very proud to be living in America,
but I'm an Irishman first.
Two years without eating.
Can you imagine the severe dose of hangry you'd have with that?
[laughing]
[Greg] America, more than any country,
is that amalgamation of all those experiences
and ties back to other cultures.
It's all this gumbo of all these different things
and that's what makes it amazing.
Understanding of immigrants allows to have a more inclusive world,
a more inclusive America.
No America of exclusion.
[somber pipe music]
The entire tour,
uh, this one performance was on my mind.
I know a lot of you know Kelly, or at least knew her.
My cousin Kelly who passed away,
uh, who was actually working in the venue
that we were going to play as part of the tour.
It was the first time I was gonna be there.
It was the first time we were gonna be performing the song that I wrote for her.
Uhm, Dave wrote this beautiful song for her,
so will you please listen to the song.
[slow somber guitar music]
♪ Night comes down And time stands still ♪
♪ Shook my world Without a compromise ♪
♪ Memories linger until ♪
♪ Salt water fills up my eyes ♪
♪ And I'll hold you forever ♪
♪ And I'll follow the light That'll shine over me ♪
♪ And I'll hold you forever ♪
♪ My beautiful girl ♪
♪ A mother's love is all I have ♪
♪ Hold you close Though we're worlds apart ♪
♪ Now it's time for letting go ♪
♪ We keep you here Deep in our hearts ♪
♪ Now they're calling you over ♪
♪ One thing you should know Just before that you leave ♪
♪ I'll never be over ♪
♪ So long and Godspeed ♪
♪ Kelly Ann, Kelly Ann ♪
♪ Your flame burns deep inside of me ♪
♪ Kelly Ann, Kelly Ann ♪
♪ The tides turned And fought with the sea ♪
♪ And I'll hold you forever ♪
♪ And I'll follow the light That'll shine over me ♪
♪ And I'll hold you forever ♪
♪ My beautiful girl ♪
Sleep well, Kelly.
[cheering]
Thank you.
[Dave] Woo!
Round of applause for him, I don’t know how he got to do that.
[all cheering]
[waves crashing]
[Dave] So she worked in Finnegan's…
How old was she?
Uh, I'd say she was about 26, 27.
Got in with the wrong bloke and was influenced in some way,
and then it seemed to be happening
to a lot of young people today where, again, drugs,
the scourge of drugs is a, is winning, you know?
Yeah, I know, a lot of people liked her, she was like…
-It was sad… -A lot of people were talking about her.
-Oh, fuck it. -Man, that was hard.
I felt proud that I'd written this song
and that I sang it and I was giving people,
y'know, something to hang on to.
And particularly her mom, y'know,
because we love her to bits and all that, y'know.
Y'know what we need?
A boat.
We need a break.
We need a break, yeah, and not be fucking hurt.
We've done all the groundwork,
we've settled everything,
we've been all over the world.
All over America, all over Europe.
The music is there, the songs are there, the musicianship is there,
everything is there.
We need a break.
We need a little bit of love now.
[Dave] That's exactly it.
[fast paced guitar music]
[announcer] I know you guys are loaded, they still have shirts,
CDs and stuff, so anything you can throw,
a buck or two in that little basket, that will all go to their hotel,
their food, getting them a better RV for the last nine states.
Whatever they need.
[all cheering]
[slow lively country music]
[Simon] I'm working on the Guinness World Record
tour compliance checklist
that I've been doing for every gig so far.
And we are basically filling in paperwork
based on what we thought they would want.
There's still some not clear parameters
of what our requirements would need to be,
and this week a letter is going from the producers in Vegas
to Guinness Book of World Record.
From what I understand, the gist is we are gonna say
this what we are doing, please sign off on this.
And sometimes you have a moment where you think,
"Why did this ship set sail before we had a framework?"
But we're here now and we're gonna finish it.
A dream is one thing and it's great to dream,
but to actually go and do it,
and they're like, it's great planning all this stuff,
and we're gonna do these 50 states,
we're gonna do this and then we're gonna do this, and then we were like,
"Fuck, now we have to go and do it."
[Simon] Hi, this is Simon.
I'm the tour manager for the band called The Black Donnellys.
We have lost our scheduled gig in Delaware,
and obviously we need to cover every state.
Minimum 15 minutes, we'll be in and out of your hair.
If there is any chance you can throw us a little food
or any kind of booking fee,
that would be greatly appreciated,
but I know beggars can't be choosers,
we're basically just looking to cover the state of Delaware.
[Dave] Wow, look at this place.
-Holy Jesus, so… -[Dave] It's like a cartoon.
It is.
In there is the man that's making all the decisions
that's affecting anybody.
[Dave] We've always had an idea of what America was,
but through this trip and through this tour
we were getting closer
to understanding what America was all about.
Actually is, yeah.
We've given a lot to this country and a lot to the build above it.
-Uh… -[Dave] We are…
We've added to the culture, we've added to the, y'know,
we brought everything with us.
There's Irish blood in the veins of this country.
[Dave] Yeah, that's for sure.
[Dave] There's a huge difference
in between what they want you to believe and what has actually happened.
There's a huge devoid there.
What's surreal, looking at that building now,
after all what we've done,
there's a lot of stuff we want to ask him to do.
[Dave] There's a lot of stuff I'd love to say.
[high paced country music]
Oh!
[all cheering]
[narrator] Your journey forward has just started
because this is America.
This is our idea of an American Dream.
To pursue your dream, you gotta work on it.
That was the idea.
If we keep working, working at it, then our dream will happen.
Y'know, to me it's honestly to be able to do
whatever I want with whomever I want,
without ever having to worry about money.
That's the American Dream.
Every man, every woman wants to be able
to provide their kids with an education.
They want to be able to protect 'em.
They want to be able to give them something
so that they're successful.
To me, that's the American Dream.
[man] I didn't just want, "Oh, I'm gonna have a great house
and the car and everything."
To me it was about achieving what I think I was born to do.
You can pretty much still achieve anything in the US.
Although there are increasingly barriers to that.
It takes a lot of drive,
you gotta know where you wanna go before you get there.
[man] How much you put into this country
is how much you get out of this country.
How can we not realize what we have?
And what we have access to,
what we can do and what we can become.
[man] Everybody that comes here and works hard,
and puts their time and their effort into it, they deserve a chance.
Because this is America, man, this is America.
[light country music]
♪ On the edge of the candlelight ♪
♪ She asked me will I stay the night ♪
♪ Wanna play, play, play it right ♪
The thing with an RV they're not built to carry
a band around.
[Dave] Do you know the miles
that we did was incomprehensible?
We actually traveled the circumference of the Earth.
I'm not surprised there were bits falling off
and stuff like that.
♪ Because if she's here it's so uptight ♪
♪ And when she's gone ♪
The DRV was done for yesterday.
Basically, we're driving a dumpster.
[laughing]
The shrouds between the bumper and the gray tank,
the welds on that were cheap.
That's our RV out there.
Recreational vehicle.
I don't know why they call it that, 'cause it's shit!
[laughter]
[Dave] We're shooting on with the RV, so it's really extreme.
[Dave] Yeah.
[Chad] Yesterday we lost our A/C, so we have no cold air.
[man over phone] I just don't have anybody to work on it
that soon until Monday next week.
[woman over phone] I will go ahead and put you in
so that they know that you're coming in, okay?
[Dave] Everyday there was like this, I don't care.
Oil changes every 4,000 miles, propane went out,
and laundry, we had to change the sewage, the septic tank.
Yay, six a.m. in the morning.
Now I get to be up and heading out for an oil change.
It just ran on and on.
Every time, it's like "There's something."
Y'know what? You're not getting paid to do this, so do it.
[laughing]
[light jazz music]
♪ Lying on her bed ♪
♪ Tries to remember his name ♪
♪ I think some of circumstance ♪
♪ Victim of the game ♪
♪ Where is it now? ♪
♪ Trying to keep him coming 'round ♪
♪ And I never understood the books ♪
-Valet that shit box, will ya? -[laughing]
♪ Searching the answers For questions in your head ♪
♪ Things we never said ♪
-[Dave] We're in Baltimore. -[Dave] Maryland.
Yes, where the "Star Spangled Banner" was written.
We basically rolled here.
We were free wheeling downhill all the way here.
[laughing]
We're walking hands and mouth at the minute,
so literally every gig that we go to now,
we're depending on the money from that gig
-to get us to the next gig. -Nobody was getting paid.
-No. -We'd ran out of money,
we didn't have the funds to pay people.
Uh, we didn't have funds for hotels, flights,
everything was starting to fall apart.
[Dave] We're down to sleeping in the RV.
About eight people in the RV.
-Yeah. -Like the-- like a good immigrant.
[laughing]
I wonder, if, maybe, hindsight, and all that-- bullocks.
So now we're gonna try and finish it,
with a smile on our face and no petrol in the tank.
[Dave] I think we're literally gonna get to New York like this.
Oh, yeah, on our knees.
Yeah, we'll probably come up out of the Hudson, y'know.
A dollar, I have a dollar.
-God Bless y'all. -Have a best one.
Those people less fortunate than you.
[slow country music]
[bell tolls]
Where the Declaration of independence was written, fantastic.
And we were here, right at six o'clock.
I love it.
[Dave] This give serious amount of hope for all sorts of races
and all sorts of people from all sorts of countries.
I always wondered like, these guys and the forefathers,
what they would think of America today.
[Dave] There's such a front put up against immigration now,
and yet here you have these people waving the American flag
and they're not even from here.
[Dave] It's like they're holding up--
we don't even have a 100 dollar bill to hold up.
[laughing]
The land of opportunity. I'm gonna rob that 100 dollar bill.
[laughing]
[Dave] We're getting educated as we're going along here.
These moments in time, these historical events.
Buildings, places, that's given us, y'know,
a good idea of what America is built on.
An interesting contrast between what was then
to what is now.
[whistling]
[laughing]
[slow uplifting jazz music]
[Dave] Rocky Balboa going 12 rounds up against all the adversities
is the same as us doing this world record tour.
-[Dave] He didn't do it in an RV. -He didn't do it in an RV, no.
We're in more pain that he ever was.
If anybody was to be looking from the outside
and see what was happening to us, they'd say we'd never get there.
Well, hopefully, we prove them wrong.
If we get knocked out with technicality
because we didn't fill a sheet in or something…
We know we played 50 states, we know we've done 60 gigs,
and we know we've done it in 40 days.
[Dave] It's about the experience, it's about the learning along the road,
it's about the meeting of the people.
If we don't get the certificate, y'know, so be it.
[Dave] We have set the record, as for someone to break that.
Break our record.
Do it.
♪ Fills my day with love and laughter ♪
♪ And now the dream's come true ♪
♪ Who am I to be That I now found her ♪
♪ I'm really glad ♪
♪ Best days I've ever had ♪
♪ Baby, I'm really glad ♪
♪ You made it so ♪
[cheering]
This guy, he says, "I work at a campsite up the road here,
if you want, we can hook you guys up,
and you can stay here for a night or two if needs be."
[Dave] I don't remember any of that.
I arrived at a campsite like "What're we doing here?"
[laughing]
Okay, so we're making a s'more.
[Dave] Hit me, man.
What do you do here, just heat it up?
-[man] Yeah. -[Dave] Just put your sack on the fire.
-[man] Put this one on top, squeeze it. -On top. Squeeze it.
[both] Pull.
So this is the first time I've had a s'more.
[crunching]
-Mmm. Oh, my. -[man] Welcome to America.
Oh.
[Dave] That's a surprise, it's lovely.
Oh, come on!
Why are we only doing this now?
[Dave] You're in another country, you're in America and you see,
"Oh, this is what they do,
this is what American people do when they camp."
♪ Our van is shit ♪
♪ We need another bit ♪
[laughing]
[man] More wine!
[laughing]
[Simon] I didn't see you.
You didn't see me, I'm the biggest man here.
[laughing]
"I didn't see ya," I'm wearing a funny hat
and I weigh about 260 pounds, he must be drunk.
I cannot believe…
I can't believe the fucking red wine's gone.
Where's that little bollocks? There he is there, look,
-drank all the red wine. -No.
-No? -Finished it.
[laughing]
My first recollection of music was sitting in a taxi
listening to ELO, "All Over The World".
Which still to this day is probably got to be
my most favorite song in the world.
And then I usually get so wrapped up in the song
that I take a hairbrush and I be singing into the mirror
and I be miming, and I get that enthralled in the song
I actually start crying.
[laughing]
That's as true as God.
I got into it 'cause you can get women playing guitar.
It's very simple.
No, I got into it-- Steve, my brother, used to have a…
He was obviously four years older than me,
he started bringing stuff home,
and I heard Thin Lizzy and I heard Gary Moore playing
and I heard the noise of a guitar,
and I was like "Oh, that's just the business".
My brother brought me down to see Thin Lizzy,
and two weeks later I'd seen AC/DC
and I was like, "That's what I want to do".
It's the noise that you, when you're doing this stuff.
[blues guitar music]
That still kills me.
Nothing else, there's no, it's just being able to do all that.
[blues guitar music]
So that's what-- what got me into music, was playing guitar.
And to this day I'm still loving and trying to learn
how to do that.
[upbeat country music]
♪ In a minute ♪
♪ He's probably saying ♪
♪ Try to write a catchy song Only meant for yourself ♪
♪ And slowly come around ♪
♪ Couldn't see it ♪
♪ Look for the trees ♪
♪ Who'd have thought my little world Would come tumbling down ♪
♪ And I'm slowly coming round ♪
[cheering]
So Friday we get to go home after 25 days on the road,
I'm really looking forward to that, I have to say,
because I, it's been fantastic and it's been great,
but it's been shit as well.
[light acoustic guitar music]
[Dave] Here we are in Boston,
which is a major stronghold for the Irish.
Just mainly because it's one of the major parts
that the Irish came into.
Ireland was ruled by England for 800 years.
We rebelled against them, they tried to exterminate us,
they attempted genocide.
The famine has its own stories, everyone knows
that there wasn't really a famine, we weren't allowed fish,
we weren't allowed to have our own grain
and all that sort of stuff.
[Dave] They wouldn't let us grow crops, they wouldn't let us be educated,
y'know, all the ideas of head schools, you had to do it in secret,
and teach ourselves.
They come from a place where they were denied so much
that they really want to fully get that benefit
of the American Dream.
There's this dream about America
where you can come here and you can literally be
anything that you dream of being or hope to be.
It was very sad to have to leave your own country
so you could actually just live.
[narrator] Millions of Europeans left their homelands
to settle in new countries across the seas.
Almost two thirds of them came to the United States.
There was a mass exodus in the mid-1800s when the famine hit Ireland.
And over two million people left the country.
[man] When America got its freedom from England,
it had a great infraction for Irish people.
[Dave] A lot of people obviously headed for the States,
across on the coffin ships, it took six to 12 weeks.
You had to beat typhoid and tuberculosis along the way.
When they left Ireland and they got to the East Coast,
they were on the East Coast of America, they weren't welcome.
It goes to show ya how resilient the Irish people were
because they dug in and they were massively influential.
Particularly in the buildup of the fabric of society.
The Irish started in jobs like firefighters
and police officers,
jobs that other people didn't necessarily want to do.
And they worked their way up into politics and became prominent figures
in a large part of the East Coast.
[Dave] Building this place, making it work and being part of America.
Like, they don't claim just to be totally Irish,
they claim to be Irish-American.
And that's, they're making this country better.
And here's a brilliant sculptor.
[Dave] Augustus Saint-Gaudens from Dublin.
His mother was Irish.
[both] And his father was French.
[Dave] This is a great example as to what Irish immigrants
added or contributed to America.
[Dave] It's amazing, we've traveled
across the country in an RV and we're moaning about it
and what to do and all that, and whatever we did.
These people came in ships.
And so many people died at sea, one of the-- John Boyle O'Reilly,
one of the great writers, said that the Atlantic Ocean
was a bowl of tears.
So it must have been absolutely horrendous to deal with.
And not only that they'd come from hell
and they'd come over here, and still going through hell.
[Dave] It's amazing when you read and that still hurts today.
-[Dave] Yeah. -Still hurts.
Somebody says to ya, "Oh what, why should you go,
why should America let you in, why should--"
Have a fucking look, man, read a history book.
This sculpture is what hell we left at,
and how we toured and toured and toured and this where we are now.
[cheerful jazz music]
[Dave] So we're heading to New York tomorrow.
This would be a nightmare to be driving around New York with,
so we're getting rid of it.
Chad's drivin' it back.
It's traveled for a many miles, 40,000 miles?
And there it is?
[Dave] It's 40,000 miles and Chad drove 16,000.
It's been a good servant, would I travel in one again?
I don't know.
-Well, you know the brakes work. -[laughing]
I thought the cooking was great, the dinners were lovely.
-[Dave] Yeah, we didn't use this once. -[laughing]
We never thought we were gonna get there, to be honest with you.
We didn't think we were going to do it, ya know?
There's been so many unplanned happenings
and turns and crannies
and yeah, there's been a lot of emotion here as well,
ya know, change as we've been going along.
And it's nice to get to the end of it, it definitely is, ya know?
Let's get rid of this bitch and roll out!
When we're letting it go, a very poignant thing happened.
Our driver was holding onto it
and then just before we're about to let it go,
he slices his whole finger.
Y'know, and at that moment I went,
ya know what, this thing is fucking possessed.
[Chad] Oh, yeah, whoa!
[Dave] Don't say it.
[Simon] Yeah!
[Dave] Don't touch it!
I just barely touched it.
[Dave] For all the failings of it, it still kept going.
I mean, we can say what we like about it,
but it got us through and it got us there, ya know?
Bye!
[laughing]
♪ This world I'm in ♪
♪ Drags me down again ♪
♪ I'm changing I'm turning, I'm changing ♪
♪ Blows me down again ♪
♪ Can't remember when ♪
♪ There was a day wasn't raining ♪
♪ But who we are ♪
So here we are, folks, heading into New York,
one way straight into Grand Central Station.
And there she is there.
-And it just pulling in right now. -Our chariot has arrived.
This is our final stay at our final city, and we're really excited.
-Today is the day we break… -The world record.
♪ Guess he doesn't want Anyone to know ♪
♪ Anyone to know ♪
♪ About her brand new friend ♪
♪ She went all mean All up in the show ♪
♪ All up in the show ♪
♪ Blows me down again ♪
♪ Walls are closing in ♪
[Dave] We were doing a Facebook live thing
and I just went, "Well, folks, we're here."
Ah, here we are, we made it to Grand Central Station
in New York City.
This our 50th state, this is the end of our journey.
I love this city, it's fantastic.
Finally here.
♪ But it's who we are ♪
♪ Who we'll be ♪
♪ Time will sort it out ♪
♪ Help me now ♪
♪ It's all to me ♪
♪ Tell me what it's all about ♪
♪ Guess he doesn't Want anyone to know ♪
♪ Anyone to know ♪
♪ About her brand new friend ♪
♪ She went all mean All up in the show ♪
♪ All up in the show ♪
McSorley's is the oldest continuously operating bar
in New York City, it's always been owned by an Irishman.
Same establishment, same spot. 164 years.
A landmark for every Irish person has ever gone there,
cool, cool, cool place.
They treated us really nicely there as well.
Coming here, you've never seen this before
and it's like you're opened up and everyone…
That's how this place-- It's like a revolving door,
the amount of people from all over.
Half the time, we don't even know who's in here sometimes.
This is where you used to come to get a job.
-Yeah. -Yeah, you'd meet everybody here.
Us and the Anton Brothers, yeah?
Yeah, we're the only two bands that have ever played there.
We knew at that stage we were killing the record.
[light folk music]
This is amazing, this is a piece of the old sort of home,
you bring her over here and you have it
as a tribute to our famine, what we went through,
what our people went through.
The biggest thing that anybody can do
is to take a plunge into the unknown.
In Ireland, I think you put 100% in, you might get 2% out.
You put 100% in in America,
you have a chance of getting more of it.
When you come to America,
you literally have the ability to pull yourself out of poverty,
get an education and do anything you want.
America gave me the opportunity for me to believe that I can do
what I want to do in this country, and I've done that.
I started as a, y'know, a dishwasher
when I was 14 years old when I came here.
Ya know, we're really not taking anything away,
we're doing the best we can to make it a great country
because this is our home, this is where we live.
And you can be what you want to be here.
You can fly your flag, you can sing your songs.
If you want to do the work, it's definitely you can do anything
you want in this country.
You can be nothing one day,
and be a total hero the next day.
The possibilities are endless.
[harmonica music]
♪ I've seen the lights on Broadway ♪
♪ I've seen it all ♪
♪ Went running when she called me ♪
♪ Answered the call ♪
♪ Like Uncle Sam says ♪
[Dave] Everybody's idea of America is Times Square.
It's the decadence, the over excess,
you can have anything you want, the possibilities,
y'know, the opportunities,
realistically, it's only a small part of it,
because America is a huge place and it's really, really diverse.
And we've been through all the states and all the rest of it
and it's just not what you see.
♪ I felt so alone ♪
[Dave] We bounced back, we made it, we got here.
Only because everybody gave a little bit of skin for this, ya know?
People could have just easily, easily have walked away
but they didn't, because they wanted to see it to the end.
-Nobody wanted to be the one that was… -Not part of the tour.
Just up the road is Albert Lee playing
and then you got The Tonight Show,
The Colbert Show, you got NBC,
Wicked is playing.
The Black Donnellys just played in the Opry.
They just played the Opry, just throwing that in.
-Wait, the Black Donn's played today? -They did, yeah.
-Where'd they play? -The Opry.
-Oh, great. -Yeah.
[upbeat guitar music]
[Dave] We've had all our states done, but we didn't have enough gigs.
So we needed every single gig from that point onwards,
so the Iridium gig was really important.
So we didn't know we got the gig until like 23 minutes beforehand.
And I woke up…
We were asleep, we were asleep in the hotel.
I had like a burst of Maktus when I woke up.
We were getting ready, we're doing a gig at the Mean Fiddler
and he goes, "Uh-oh," and I was, "What's wrong?"
He goes, "We're on stage in 20 minutes."
I said, "You're joking me." And it was like that waffles ad,
diddly, diddly, diddly so I was like "Ah!"
Have you ever been in New York City and had to get anywhere quick?
Never gonna happen.
[all cheering]
-Oh! -[crowd cheering]
[slow paced acoustic guitar music]
So, this is America, this is the symbol.
[Dave] This would have been the first thing
that they would have seen as they came in.
And the first realization that this was their freedom.
That they've made it.
[Dave] But little did they know their troubles were only beginning.
Her take was only the beginning, which was discovering Ellis Island.
♪ To give it all how to play ♪
[Dave] To get over here, you would want to be fairly desperate.
Two million people. To Ellis Island. Two million.
♪ I remember the feelings I had as a kid ♪
[Dave] Five thousand people along with you.
Then you're standing in line for at least 14 hours,
then they tell you that typhoid or some sort of disease,
and then they'd put you in quarantine.
♪ I hope that things would get better ♪
♪ Better ♪
♪ Go and cry, baby, cry ♪
♪ 'Cause nobody hurting you now ♪
Coming to America, going through the immigration system,
jumping through all the hoops and all the rest of it,
and it's as hard today as it was back then.
You think things would have moved on, ya know?
[Dave] The lessons of the Irish famine
need to be constantly learned and applied
until history finally ceases to repeat itself.
♪ Go and cry ♪
[Dave] Here we are, on our last gig.
The iconic Arlene's Grocery.
We're here, we're alive and we're all still together.
And we've made the gig, right?
So no matter who the fuck is out there, we've done it.
It's such a feel-good ending to it all.
It seems like it's been a long time away,
when you mention the five weeks.
But to us it's been a blimp, it's been a whoosh.
I haven't ever experienced something this quick
and this fast and this condensed and this surreal.
A venue in New York, play it and have the place full.
[crowd cheering]
[Dave] A lot of people came that we hadn't seen in a long time,
people who live in New York,
it was a great satisfying moment.
[fast paced guitar music]
Oh!
[all cheering]
By Jesus, it's warm in here.
[Dave] Holy Moly.
So that just about covers the 15 minutes
as stipulated by the Guinness Book of Records.
Just to ah…
-[crowd] You broke the record! -[Dave] We just broke the world record!
The moment of breaking a world record,
especially this world record 'cause this was the hardest.
The actual idea that you've done it-- when you look back at the map,
and see all the stuff that you've done,
we now are the only people in the whole world
that have done this.
To measure success is really difficult, it's a very personal thing.
And it's really great when you actually realize a dream.
We were so close to the edge of failing this and…
We were past the edge, man. We were hanging on.
Yeah, we went way beyond, hanging on by our fingernails.
Hanging on by somebody else.
And it's unbelievable, this whole thing.
It was if it was meant to happen.
[crowd cheering]
We're dedicating this song to everyone
who's made their home, number one, in America,
and secondly, for anybody else that has been away from home
for a long period of time.
It's great to go into the world and broaden your horizons,
but when you try to get back home,
you come back home and life moves on,
you don't feel like you're at home when you get back.
And you don't feel at home when you're abroad
because you're away from home.
So you're left swinging in limbo.
A dilemma, you're swinging in limbo, you don't know where you belong.
Thank God we have alcohol.
[laughter]
"This is My Home", folks, hope you like this.
[slow uplifting guitar music]
♪ Somewhere in here ♪
♪ My heart holds the time For those passing years ♪
♪ In all of its glory and all my fears ♪
♪ Finding no ending and no frontiers ♪
We learned a lot about the United States, a lot of good people.
How welcoming and how friendly and how nice people are.
We didn't see the media-spun kind of America.
Just people, just doing the same thing that we do,
what they like doing, they want to walk,
they want to drink, they want to have good times
they want to get paid, and then just be themselves.
♪ This is my home and I've been away ♪
♪ For far too long from my home ♪
♪ Come back now The bad feeling's gone ♪
♪ From my home where the love is ♪
♪ My home again ♪
The idea of "This Is My Home"
is this perfect balance of I brought what is dear to me
to this new country and I'm forging a new place that is home
for the next generation to come.
My kids, their kids.
America is the ultimate immigrant country.
We're all immigrants here in the United States,
whether we'd been here for four generations like myself
or whether we're just coming over now.
This country was built on immigration.
If you ask the average person in the United States
what their heritage is, most don't understand,
most have no idea.
But it's such a melting pot. We all have everything in us.
[man] The melting pot is actually in America,
there's no country in the world that has had more influence
from everywhere around the world than America.
We come to this country
because it's the only country in the world
where you can really pursue
anything you could ever have dreamed of.
[man] I think the opportunities here are just, ya know,
you can't find anywhere else in the world.
This tour is about "This Is My Home".
This is how difficult it is,
to assimilate in a different culture.
These guys coming over here
and playing the music that they do,
from the country that they're from.
When you get a chance to sit and talk to somebody
from another country,
you learn that there's not that big a difference between us.
America in itself is a country of inclusion.
Everybody knows where they come from,
but we all understand where we belong.
Just got this from my daughter, that my wife just sent to me.
[Aisha] Say "Well done, daddy."
Well done, daddy.
Having a family now, it's just, it's a, it's a killer.
'Cause I mean,
when you're doing the shit that I've done
and the rock and roll stuff and you did it for yourself,
but now something like this is like,
you're doing it for your family and you're doing it.
And it's such a, it's an amazing moment.
I mean she's American, this kid.
I mean, she's grown up in four or five weeks,
how long we've been away for and she's putting sentences together.
[Aisha] Say "Well done, daddy."
Well done, daddy.
There ya go, ah, I can't wait to see her tomorrow.
♪ 'Cause this is my home ♪
♪ And I've been away For far too long from my home ♪
♪ Coming back now The bad feeling's gone ♪
♪ From my home, where the love is ♪
♪ And my home again ♪
Hello? All right, hold on.
Everybody, my green card just arrived! Hey!
I'm so filled with emotion and happiness right now
because of this great news.
I'm one step closer to being a citizen
and a part of America.
[laughing]
When I get a phone call from my wife,
saying that the green card had arrived,
that fantastic moment that I will never ever forget.
[Dave] I'm so happy!
-I'm so happy! -Thanks, bud.
The dream is still alive, it is.
I know it's got bashed around and kicked and stood on,
and you put it in a safe, but it's still there and you go,
if you wanna go look for it, you'll find it.
♪ 'Cause this is my home ♪
♪ And I've been away for far too long ♪
It's a land of opportunity,
it really is and it still is.
And I've gotten more filled with that now than I was when we started.
The dream is, to me is
being able to be happy in what you're doing every day.
♪ This is my home ♪
♪ And I've been away for far too long ♪
♪ From my home ♪
♪ Coming back now The bad feeling's gone ♪
♪ From my home where the love is ♪
♪ And my home again ♪
♪ This is my home ♪
♪ And I've been away for far too long ♪
♪ From my home ♪
♪ Coming back now The bad feeling's gone ♪
♪ From my home where the love is ♪
♪ And my home again ♪
♪ And here I'll stay ♪
♪ For the rest of my days ♪
♪ This is my home ♪
[light acoustic guitar music]
[upbeat rock music]
♪ Fire ♪
♪ I'm gonna set this world on fire ♪
♪ Hey, I can't deny this feeling ♪
And now for something a little different.
Well, how y'all doin'?
[laughing]
[imitating gun firing]
[Dave] How y'all doin'?
Those Indians over there!
[laughing]
I'm gonna get thrown outta this show.
♪ Somewhere ♪
Was it 35 days, 50 states,
even over to little Hawaii.
It was fantastic, it really was,
but, y'know, I don't want them in America anymore.
I really don't, and you know why. You know very well why.
You chose Mandalay, Mandalay over Trump.
You decided to go, what is it, west of The Strip?
You went west of The Strip and you could've went east.
Okay?
Very bad, not good.
No green card for you,
no green card for the two Daves, is what I'm saying.
♪ My soul's a burning flame ♪
♪ Don't let tomorrow ♪
I'm trying to get the frame right, this-- I'm not even kidding you,
this is an Irish bar called The Dubliner, all right?
You got your Mexicans serving you hotdogs,
and then you got,
there's your American dream right there.
[light acoustic guitar music]
♪ Hello, my friend ♪
♪ Seeing you again ♪
♪ With a cup in your hand ♪
♪ And the face of a man ♪
♪ To line your street ♪
♪ With holes in your feet ♪
♪ With a 20 in mind ♪
♪ All thrown into nine ♪
♪ As they pass ye by ♪
♪ With fear in their eyes ♪
♪ Telling they don't even see you ♪
♪ We don't care There's love everywhere ♪
♪ Not a drop For the ones in the shadows ♪