Jeez, that Marcus Collins cover of 7 nation army? Surely the worst thing created since chemical warfare? Anyway, on tour our friend Pearl was taking pictures of Kaiser Chiefs and we asked her on stage on the last gig in Plymouth…here are the results!
See more of Pearl’s photos HERE – they are ace.
A few people filmed parts of our set too…this one below is pretty good, a bit shaky at first but levels out…
If there is anything I have learnt this week it is that Plymouth is a long way from Leeds, but it’s a pretty good place to play a gig. Anyway, Birmingham welcomed us early on Friday evening but it didn’t stop the hordes from making their way in which was great. Someone had deposited a fairly frightening pornographic magazine in our dressing room toilet and much hilarity followed with our crew cutting out their favourite shots from “40 and over” and sneaking it into the band’s bags, coat pockets, or putting it on a wall and drawing Vijay’s face on it. Don’t ask what the beard was…
I forgot to mention we got to see this awesome keyboard in Derby!
The Wasp
That blew our tiny minds for a long time. Plymouth Pavilions on Saturday was enormous…Look!!!
And the crowd was incredible! Additionally the other support band All the Young dedicated a song to us to say goodbye, what lovely chaps. We have had such a great response on this tour it’s been quite humbling. We sold 900 tour cds and vinyls which was pretty nuts, and we’ve been treated really well by all the crew, bands and venue staff. We even got Champagne from Kaiser Chiefs on the last date…
So to say we’re charmed is an understatement. I’m pretty sure we’ll return to all the places we’ve been fairly soon, most likely this year. So thanks to everyone who has come, we’ve got our own bit of touring starting this week which is proper good and what not…
Club Smith - Lee, Sam, Vijay, Neil
Kaiser Chiefs - Peanut, Ricky, Simon, Nick, Whitey
Club Smith in Derby - Picture courtesy of Sarah Abigail Bottomley
And so the tour rolls on, after Southend on Sunday we moved onto London to do our own show. It was surprisingly busy and responsive for a London show, as such is the bustle of the capital we often fear being drowned out by people’s thoughts of getting ahead and what not. We also met a lovely bunch of people called Apple Eyes.
We then went to hit the travelodge. However our rooms had been given away, apparently it’s standard practice to overbook by 5 rooms? I pointed and shouted at the guy whilst wearing an 80s mac and the angry Rick Astley routine seemed to work and he booked us into a hotel 10 miles away. We got there and we weren’t booked in. We went back to the travelodge and he sent us another 10 miles away. We slept there and when we got up travelodge still hadn’t paid for the room. We were very outraged so booked into a spa. If there has ever been a more middle class/middle aged solution to a problem on tour I’d like to know it.
Here are 2 of our comrades on tour. The man on the left is Will who does our monitor sound, and the man on the right is Dudley who is selling our merch and driving us. They are both heroes of ours. Will has no volume control on his voice and Dudley has no control over whether what he says is appropriate, so it’s a great combination. One guy shouting all the time the other dishing out outrageous faux pas.
Guildford was great, as was Derby. We’ve sold an outrageous amount of cds and vinyls on tour now. A guy with Kaiser Chiefs told us it was probably enough to chart, which is a bit nuts. We still have time on the merch stand to deface a Jim Davidson flyer though…
Club Smith at Llandudno
So three days into the tour and it’s been quite incredible fun. The crowds have been amazingly responsive to us, the crew and other bands are really friendly and helpful, and we’ve sold out of our tour cds to the point that we need to courier in some new ones for the next gig tomorrow. The down point is every time we get to accommodation our group flips coins to see who won’t sleep in the same room as me due to snoring (I BOUGHT A BLOODY SNORE GUARD TOO), which is a real blow to the confidence…bastards.
Above is a picture from LLandudno. North Wales is pretty cool, some nice cliffs and a right rowdy bunch for a crowd…all of whom were massively charming after.
Here’s a picture from Reading in soundcheck…
The Hexagon was some kind of awesome 80′s spaceship type building with outrageous garish dressing room and posters of heritage act stars in the catering room (Gaby Rosling in various musicals).
The gig was again great, and I’ve managed to cut open two fingers now playing guitar. I like the idea of saying it’s down to being right active on stage and what not but it’s probably due to being pretty bad at playing guitar properly.
Above is a picture from outside Southend Pavillions, where they’ve just finished a round of legally blonde the musical and last night hosted Kaiser Chiefs, All the Young and Club Smith. I think this was our best gig so far, we’d gone out for Lee’s birthday after Reading I thought I was going to cry 2 minutes before stage time I was so hungover…but I think it brought the best out of us. Really could do with a good cry though sometime soon, been a while.
Tonight…London our own gig at the Garage in Islington!
MONDAY 6TH FEB: HMV NEXT BIG THING – THE RITZ, MANCHESTER - TICKETS HERE
FRIDAY 10TH FEB: BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB, LEEDS, WITH THE NEAT – FREE ENTRY
SATURDAY 11TH FEB: CITY SCREEN BASEMENT, YORK. TICKETS HERE
Saturday
We’ve been asked to do the HMV next big thing festival on 6th February…and we’re doing it in Manchester. At the HMV Ritz.
Tickets are here: CLICK ME AND PURRRRCHASE OOOOH BABY
You can also read about the festival there. I’m trying to think of an image to put below to make this post more attractive to the eye.
But I can’t, so here’s one of Vijay with a clearly modified banana.
Tiny head or big banana?
Hey, decent news what what. We’re doing a gig supporting Shed Seven in Manchester!
York’s favourite sons selected us to do the Academy with them on Friday 9th December…the bad news, it’s already sold out! But enjoy this video below…
This is a bit of a treat for us, we’re all fans of the band and with our York heritage it’s really awesome to be involved in their tour. Pinch yourself moment…
Hey,
Thisisfakediy.co.uk have premièred our new video HERE. Nice!
We’re back in Norich this weekend, playing the epic studios which is where the Wright Stuff is filmed I’m told. Pretty surreal, but apparently it’s a venue too…should be interesting. Get tickets HERE for a mere £5. And check out the all sorted twitter account for many a deal/free ticket or such like…you can catch up with them HERE.
