Ok people, it’s taken every scrap of self control to keep this quiet over the last few days but we are literally buzzing with excitement to be able to announce that we will be playing 4 European shows over the next month with The Rolling Stones!!!! Mick Jagger himself has given us his blessing and we will be in Zurich this coming Sunday for the first show. Thank you guys for your unswerving support. This is down to you!!
The time is 7.47am. I’m sitting at gate D26 at Amsterdam airport waiting to board my flight home. The tour is over and The Temperance Movement touring party has dispersed (temporarily) and scattered to various destinations via varying methods of transport.
There are always mixed feelings at the end of a tour. Excitement at getting home and seeing friends and loved ones and also tinges of sadness at the thought of leaving our strange little tour bubble.
Last night in Haarlem was the end of an era as we said farewell to merch salesman and stock control manager, Mr Tom Tunstall. He was way over qualified for the job anyway and will soon be putting his dashing good looks, sophisticated charm and infinite capacity for absorbing knowledge from books to better use. We’ll miss you Tom but if things don’t work out as a professor of English literature, you know where we are.
James Pepper (guitar/backline technician and assistant TO the tour manager) will particularly miss Tom Tunstall as the two have become inseparable friends during their time with us. He, however, will not be leaving us as he is serving a lifetime apprenticeship. We have legally adopted him and frankly, I doubt anyone else would want him. Only joking Pepper, you’ve done an incredible job and the thought of losing you to another band is too distressing to contemplate. You are an inspiration to us all and your unwavering positivity has been like a rock for us to cling to in our darker moments!
As this diary entry appears to be tuning into some kind of overblown acceptance speech, I should also take the opportunity to thank our tour managers, Iain “Mr G” Graham and Neil “Doddy” Dodd. Two tour managers who couldn’t be further apart in style and character but who, in a head to head battle of tour managerial and sound mixing abilities, are worthy opponents. We salute you!
So, last but by no means least, I’d like to thank all of you for taking time out of your lives and coming to the shows. Let’s face it, they’d be pretty sad affairs without you! We’ll be popping up at festivals over the coming months so hopefully we’ll be seeing some of you then. We wish you all a fantastic summer and until the next time,
Be lucky, be happy!
– Nick
We’re on our way to Nyon in Switzerland. Last night we had a barnstormer of a gig in Frankfurt. The sound onstage makes all the difference for us. If we are able to hear the subtleties in what each of us is doing, we can play off each other so much better and last night was one of the best shows on this European leg so far. We had an amazing crowd in and it was great to see people let go and dance with uninhibited abandon. The soundcheck yesterday also inspired the beginnings of some possible new songs.
Even though we felt last night was particularly good, the previous two shows were no slouches either. Both Brussels and Cologne were memorable gigs. It’s really encouraging to see the crowds beginning to grow in Europe. To use an expression much favoured by record companies, it feels as though we are “beginning to get traction”!
For want of something to write about, I’d like to describe to you exactly what is happening around me at this moment in time. This will give you some idea as to the levels of unbridled debauchery we experience on a daily basis. To my left, is Mr James Pepper Esq. he is fast asleep with his neck buddy pillow and his headphones on. I expect he is dreaming of string gauges, guitar changeovers and bagels, these being the foremost things on his mind during his waking hours. To my right is Phil Campbell, also asleep. He is wearing an outfit made entirely of denim save for his socks. He expelled so much energy last night that he appears to now be in suspended animation. By tonight he will be fully recharged and ready to unleash a Scottish tornado upon the people of Nyon. I hope they’re prepared.
If I look directly across the table in front of me, strewn with headphones, notebooks, empty coffee cups and sunglasses, I see Thomas Tunstall, resident poet, lothario, academic and merch salesman – also asleep and dreaming, I suspect of Kings, castles, swords, dragons and scantily clad maidens as he has been filling his head with such things on this tour. When not expertly peddling our T-shirts and vinyl, Tom can be found in the corner of a dressing room, his nose buried in a thick book titled, “A Clash of Kings” or “Game of Thrones” or “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
To the left of Tom, I see Luke Potashnick – not asleep. He is plugged into his laptop, mixing recordings of our recent uk shows which may one day reach your ears but for now reside in a secure hard drive as ones and zeros.
On Tom’s right is Damon Wilson – most definitely asleep. Damon loves to sleep. If the splitter were to career off the road through a corn field and into an icy lake, Damon most likely would not stir. Hopefully we won’t be testing that theory though.
Moving to the front cabin of our transportation unit we find Paul Sayer. As I have my back to him, I cannot see if he is asleep but he’s very quiet. Paul has been a little under the weather the last couple of days. This has by no means diminished his guitar playing however as last night he was on top form, executing guitar licks like a musical Bruce Lee. Special kudos must also go to Luke for his spellbinding solo in last night’s “Lovers and Fighters”. Anyway, before I write a full review of the gig, I’ll get back on track. The other member of our touring party occupying the front cabin with Paul also needs to be introduced. His name is Neil Dodd and he has stepped in for Iain Graham on this Euro leg. Iain has been called away on important business in America but will, I’m sure be back to terrorise us with his Malcolm Tucker style of tour management. Neil has so far proven himself to be a very affable character and more than capable of checking into hotels and making things louder and quieter on a mixing desk. I very much hope he isn’t asleep as he is currently driving.
So that just leaves me, writing this tour diary entry into my iphone to give you a snapshot of our day today. I think I’ll now read a bit more “Dracula” and then have a snooze myself.
Hello Switzerland!
I woke earlier with the sun pouring through the porthole in my cabin. Slightly confused, I got up and peered out of the small round window to discover that I was, in fact, not on a ship, but in a hotel in Portsmouth. Clearly, when designing this building, the architect made the obvious connection between Portsmouth and sea vessels and came up with the genius idea of adding a little porthole to each bedroom so the morning light could flood in and act as a natural alarm clock (curtains would have spoiled the effect from the interior). This gift from Ibis however doesn’t seemed to have had any kind of impact on Paul Sayer, my room mate for the night, as he is still flat on his back, wrapped in his duvet like an embalmed and mummified Tutankhamun before they stuck him in his ornate casket.
So, before I mention last night’s gig at the Guildhall, let’s skip back a couple of days to the London show. There was always going to be an added pressure on the London show. It’s the biggest we’ve done to date, It’s a legendary venue and all our friends and family were going to be there along with agents, management, promoters, etc, Really, it should be no more important than any other show as we always strive to deliver whether in London or Inverness. If someone has paid money for a ticket and travelled see us then they deserve the best we can give but I must admit that there was slightly more nervous anticipation than usual in the dressing room before stage time. Phil and myself dealt with this by singing Bee-Gees songs in the men’s room.
I’ve been to many gigs at Shepherd’s Bush Empire before but to play there is something else. To walk onto the stage and look out at that amazing room full of beautiful souls who’ve come with the sole intention of listening to you play music is pretty mind blowing.
I’d like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to everyone that was at Shepherd’s Bush for making the effort to travel to the show despite the tube strike. I know a lot of you had difficulties either getting there or returning home but the fact you were all there meant a lot to us. Thank you.
So, on to Oxford, and another chance to visit the awesome Lebanese & Moroccan restaurant down the road from the venue. I’ve been watching Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan’s “Trip to Italy” on BBC iplayer on this tour. If anyone has watched the programme, our tours are pretty similar to this. We drive from town to town searching out the best places to eat whilst relentlessly taking the piss out of each other by doing impersonations. You soon learn to develop a thick skin.
This brings me neatly to yesterday where we had a great pub lunch in Abingdon, a pretty little town near Oxford. Other than the shows themselves, these are my favourite times on tour when we find ourselves eating great food together and having a good old chat. Who knows where we’ll be in five or ten years time. We may all be travelling in separate buses and staying in separate hotels, unable to stand the sight of each other, or we may have given up and started careers in Telemarketing, but right now, I love the guys in this band like brothers. We may occasionally get on each other’s nerves or get a bit tired and emotional but we’re all there for each other and I wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone else.
Last night’s show in Portsmouth was a belter. I really enjoyed it. As the Portsmouth Pyramids had been flooded, the gig was moved to the Guildhall, a beautiful big room that you all filled with your infectious energy. We’d spent the hour before going on stage in our dressing room singing and dancing around to a selection of great tunes from Lenny Kravitz (first album), ELO, Paul McCartney and Wings and Delaney and Bonnie. I may start compiling a playlist of our favourite pre-gig music.
Right, I’ve just received a call from the Captain of the good ship Ibis, instructing me that we’ve out-stayed our welcome and can we kindly leave now so I’ll wrap up this lengthy tome and leave you with a lovely picture from last night taken by our very own James Pepper Esq.
See you in Cardiff!
– Nick
