We recently spoke to exlovers about their new single amongst other things. This month sees them tour the UK with Emmy The Great and who else but TGTF have been given exclusive access to the tour?? errr.. nobody that’s who. We follow exlovers in the form of a tour diary to see first hand the tour experience. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and part 3 here. This is the final part (for now)

Norwich Arts Centre – 9/02/09

After a well deserved day off, we’re off to Norwich. The Arts Centre is in an old church and has all sorts of arty things such as…art…and a nice little café that we hang out in until we are kicked out for a writing class. We come armed with limited addition tour T Shirts that our friend James screen printed. Very nice and only 20 made. It has a massive stage and it feels like our biggest audience yet. Apart from not really being able to hear our vocals we play a pretty good set, with Pete dedicating a song to his older Bro Tom and his fiancé Becky, who came to see us.

Colchester Arts Centre – 10/02/09

Arrive early in Colchester hungry and ready for a fry up. Manage to find a very odd little greasy spoon with family pictures dating from the 80’s literally covering the walls. We spent a good hour in a charity shop where an old lady took pity on Pete and bought him two plastic horses for 50p. We get to the venue which is this massive old freezing church with a huge stained glass window behind the back stage curtain (wasted as a backdrop). The sound there is really good and the crowd is ace, including some shrieking 14 year olds at the front that really want us to know their there.

We all get a little bit excited by Joe from young husbands toy gun, (Laurel wins the dying comp).

Nottingham Bodega – 11/02/09

Iron & Wine. Nottingham seems to have this weird effect over us. We’ve played there twice, and both times it’s concluded with a drunken, sticky ending. Last time we were here, well, we can’t talk about it. Anyhow…after a gig plagued with sound difficulties and coughing fits, a night called “electric banana” began. After Chris was assaulted with a jam doughnut by some indie girl and had his boxers completely ripped off by Joe, a kidnapping to Emmy’s Travelodge and Chris and Joe comparing the size of their balls, we returned for a Jagermeister fuelled evening of debauchery.

Liverpool Academy – 12/02/09

We set off bright and early so we have enough time to go to the Beatles museum. We arrived to find out it was way too expensive to go in, but the nice guy that greeted us said we could go in for a student discount, obviously it was meant to be. After a good hour and a half indulging in as much Beatles history as we could handle we headed to the venue. Pete and Simon carried on the Beatles nostalgia with a beer in the cavern club, both sat in silence staring at the stage and daydreaming, occasionally looking at each other and saying wow. After the show we wondered upstairs to behold what can only be described as the most confusing yet comfortingly masculine display of metal we had ever seen. Thanks Testament.

We recently spoke to exlovers about their new single amongst other things. This month sees them tour the UK with Emmy The Great and who else but TGTF have been given exclusive access to the tour?? errr.. nobody that’s who. We follow exlovers in the form of a tour diary to see first hand the tour experience. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here, and part 4 will be along tomorrow.

Bath Chapel Arts – 06/02/09

Wake up in Cheltenham to a proper snowdrift. It covers absolutely everything and we’re kind of snowed in. Also our van has been very cleverly vandalised with graffiti, including such masterworks as ‘exlovers watch shopping channels’ and ‘exlovers play darts’. Emmy’s band are geniuses! We set off for bath and instantly come across a Narnia-esque winter wonderland. It looks amazing driving almost cross-country to Bath, with the whole countryside under deep snow and jealously watching kids sledging. Incredibly treacherous though. At points the road disappears and we can feel the van sliding around. Bit scary but we make it to lovely Bath intact, alive and looking forward to the show.

Brooke and Laurel hunt out veggie food while the rest get greasy fry ups and then arrive back at the venue to be told there is no sound proofing in the hall and so there are noise restrictions. This means we do have to cut out the louder songs, so we decide to end the set with Pete and Chris playing a couple of acoustic numbers. Fucking disaster! They’ve never played the songs together before and the guitar we borrowed from Euan is knackered! The input slips out and they have to stop and then restart the song again, which lasts about 20 seconds before it happens again. The set ends unceremoniously with the words “fuck it”, while Pete and Chris sheepishly slip away to a tremendous cheer from the coked up teens at the front! Really fucking funny for everyone involved. We get some fried chicken and head back to what must be the single nicest Travelodge in Britain.

Reading South Street – 07/02/09

Waking up with a Chicken-hangover we set off towards Reading via the busiest Morrison’s in the world… ever! It’s like some kind of panicked feeding frenzy only without the actual eating. Not pleasant. We fill our faces with Hummus and Baguette, and we are on our way. After an uneventful drive we arrive in Reading where we find a nice Ethiopian bar/café and sit down to have beer and a hot chocolate for Laurel. (Thank you Joe from Young Husband for buying us starving waifs a beer). Later David, Johnny and Pete from Pete and the Pirates come down to see the show . Its ace to catch up because we haven’t seen them since we toured with them last November. Another sit down audience greet us as we start our show, luckily the pirates stand in front of them until they stand up. We’re slightly distracted by four dancing teens at the front jumping around like they’re at a Ska gig, especially amusing when they continue through ‘the ruins’ our quietest song. Drive back to London, beer, bed.

Watch this space, we’ll have the next installment from exlovers for you tomorrow….

We recently spoke to exlovers about their new single amongst other things. This month sees them tour the UK with Emmy The Great and who else but TGTF have been given exclusive access to the tour?? errr.. nobody that’s who. We follow exlovers in the form of a tour diary to see first hand the tour experience. This is part two, we brought you part one yesterday, and part 3 will be along tomorrow.

Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach – 03/02/09

The road to Cardiff is surprisingly easy and we get there in good time. We do learn a few things when we arrive in Cardiff.

1. Welsh is a real language! It’s on signs and everything.
2. There’s no way in hell we’re getting back to London for our day off tomorrow. This predicament will surely leave those who didn’t pack all their clothes feeling slightly fermented by the end of the week.
3. You should never order the chicken burger as part of the beer and burger deal at weatherspoon’s. It’s shit.

‘Young husband’ play a great set tonight but not many people have turned up early. It’s filled up by the time we’re on though and we play a really good show, although the technical hitches seem to be following us around. As has weatherspoon’s. I think the fact you can get a San Miguel for 99p has sent everyone over the edge of an embarrassing precipice of drunkenness. Apart from Pete who is still ill and now has a chest infection. Such a sickly boy! We offend everyone we talk to before Simon loads us all into the van and then manhandles us all into our Travelodge for sleep.

Gloucester Guildhall – 05/02/09

We were right. There was no way we could get back to London for the day off so we take Pete to the doctor for antibiotics and go to Laurel’s mum’s house to eat nice food and watch Everton beat Liverpool in the cup (which sparks Simon into singing some unrepeatable footie chants in the company of Laurels’ mother!). The next morning we set off for Gloucester. We go down well tonight after playing a good show and sell all our cd’s, which means we can eat some food for a few days! I think also on the way to Gloucester there was the first case of minor shoplifting, with somebody stealing some chilli beef bites. Horrible.

Illness is taking a stronger grip now with Brooke being struck down with flu and the weather is only going to get worse. What the hell’s it going to be like in Aberdeen?! Vitamins and lemsip are the order of the day in a misguided effort to steer ourselves away from our cold and flu maladies. Apart from Chris, who seems to be joyfully impervious to any kind of ailments, including ever being anything less than blind happy. Off to Cheltenham for Travelodge goodness and as the rest of us relax with a bag of chocolate and ‘harry potter and the order of the phoenix’, Chris ends up with emmy’s band for laughing gas and an embarrassing pass out. It’s also snowing very heavily.

We recently spoke to exlovers about their new single amongst other things. This month sees them tour the UK with Emmy The Great and who else but TGTF have been given exclusive access to the tour?? errr.. nobody that’s who. We follow exlovers in the form of a tour diary to see first hand the tour experience. This is part one, with three more parts at 4pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday…

Oxford Academy – 31/01/09

After a hectic week preparing for a long old slog on tour and excitement building, illness hits and Pete is floored by a throat infection. No way we can get ourselves roused for the trip to oxford. Pretty annoying for the very first day of the tour! But, fighting fit (almost) we set off in our trusty, and rather dilapidated Renault master on the road to Exeter.

Exeter Phoenix – 01/02/09

Always like a jaunt down to Exeter. Nice town, nice crowds and we get to stay at Laurels mums’ house and get food and whiskey! Only mild over excitement in the van from Chris, who is prone to getting carried away sometimes (and unbearably talkative) and we arrive at the phoenix. It’s a great venue and the first taste of the artsy style places we’re going to be playing with Emmy the great. Finally get to meet the people we’re going to be spending a lot of time with and everything seems pretty amicable thus far. Instantly hit it off with the Euan, Jo and Adam from ‘young husband’ who are jangly, distorted, pavement-esque excellence.Always nice to meet another band who are fellow idiots like ourselves! Looking forward to seeing more of them throughout the month.

We play well but a bit of technical problems and mild rustiness run through the set, although the crowd reaction is pretty great. Good but will get better. We also start getting through the horrific weather reports, which are causing havoc in the southeast. Which is where we’re heading next. Sweet. Kinda looking forward to some snow but not really feeling the whole dying in a massive Renault master wreck. Anyhoo, we load out and make our way to chez laurels mums for a few drinks and sleep.

Brighton Komedia – 02/02/09

So the weather doesn’t help us out at all. In fact, it’s a fucking mess. We are driving about 20mph all the way to Brighton and every time we think we’ve broken through the snow we come to a closed road and have to go round. Really, really annoying. At the end of it all, our man-mountain titan of a driver, Simon, is a quivering, tear-soaked mess. Bloody good driving though.

We see the three sights of Brighton; the Pavilion, the pier and Fatboy Slim! And he’s only there for our whole bloody set! He leaves very happy and impressed (He doesn’t talk to any of us, but his face betrays his emotions). Next stop Zoe Ball. The set is played to an entire sit down crowd, which is a bit off putting and makes us feel like we’re being too loud in songs like ‘weightless’ and ‘the new one that’s a bit newer than the other one’.

We’re staying at Chris’s friends house this evening but, alas, sickness hits again. The route back to London is impassable, in a ‘lord of the rings’ style weather display, and so we need a hotel sharpish. Luckily, Danny (the Gandalf of our happy fellowship) finds us a nice premier inn. If it’s good enough for Lenny Henry, it’s good enough for exlovers. Shower, wee, whiskey, bed.