The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

Wednesday 29th July 2009
Little Johnny Russell's, Portsmouth

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
The Steve Bland Assembly
The Boy I Used to Be

Argh. This was originally meant to be a full band show but became an acoustic show due to noise restrictions, though the pissed up punters at the back were making more noise than the four bands put together could have. Because it was so noisy we couldn't really get great dynamics going for our acoustic set, though it was nice to do 6 new tracks, many for the first time. I did, however, completely balls up 'Heart of Hearts' and make myself and indeed all of us look like complete amateurs, which is often how I feel when playing an acoustic set.

The SBA and BOTB were good though (those eagle-eyed will have noticed the SBA playing 2 days after their 'last ever gig', but we'll overlook that for now), and both covered one of our songs (SBA did Michael, BOTB did an amazing 'Hope will kill us'), which was very humbling. I'm now going on holiday for a much needed break.
x

Monday 27th July 2009
The Miller, London

The Steve Bland Assembly
The Dawn Chorus
The Adam Smith Effect

This was the SBA's last ever show and they were absolutely brilliant. It made me sad that they've stopped playing but at least we got to share their last ever show. We played pretty well too, for a small but perfectly formed and very attentive audience. We really seemed to have tightened up about 5 or 6 of the new album tracks. We've pretty much decided now that it will be out at the start of 2010 and that's when we'll be touring next. Just a few more shows this summer now.

Friday 24th July 2009
The George, Andover


The Dawn Chorus
Transcend

An interesting start but a predictable end. I'd let the diesel in the van get too low so we ran out on the hard shoulder in Fareham. Luckily Big Al and my Dad came out to save the day and we headed off a few hours late. After this, everything that happened was incredibly predictable: Steve the soundguy was lovely, we ate in Wetherspoon's, the support band were much heavier than us, we played to almost no-one but still quite enjoyed it. Probably won't go back to the George now though, I think it's just a bit too rock for our country-folk heads to handle.

Thursday 23rd July
The Swan, Ipswich


The Dawn Chorus
Mr Christopher

• Woke in Cambs and Neil was a bit sick after his 2 pints. He blamed it on his lack of a proper meal.
• Walked into town and had breakfast at Wetherspoon's with the local alcoholic community. Neil got sunburned in the pub garden.
• Went to Fopp and had the traditional splurge. I got albums by Morrissey, Sparklehorse, Tokyo Police Club, Of Montreal and The Stills and Brick, An Inconvenient Truth and Premonition on DVD all for less than £20. I love Fopp Cambridge.
• Didn't go to the Folk museum again after a poor review from some locals.
• Played quite a bit of Bum (it's a football game) on Parker's Piece (it's a field) after have a lovely ice cream.
• Got caught in a brief downpour so we ducked into a hardware shop and bought a tape measure.
• Made our way to Ipswich, where we played at apparently the only venue in Ipswich, which was a pub with a temporarily installed PA. What a great place though; they played good music, everyone was dead friendly, they were going to let us stay though we decided to head back, they fed us, gave us drinks and paid us well. All you can ask for really.
• We played fairly well, the crowd certainly got more into us as we went which is always nice.
• Drove back home despite fear of being mugged in a service station and a downpour that reduced visibility to zero and made Neil and me nearly soil ourselves.
• All in all, most good.

Wednesday 22nd July 2009
The Corner House, Cambridge


The Dawn Chorus
Paul Goodwin Band
Roadside Poppies

The boys picked me up in the van straight from work, and since it was the last day before summer I managed to steal a copious amount of buffet for us to have on the way. It was a bit trafficy on the way so we did lots of car games, including 'Would you rather?' which is a new favourite. Wit was joining us on bass for Cambridge and Ipswich, and he put in some good work on 'Would you rather?', including 'Would you rather have a penis the length of a baguette but 1 cm wide, or the girth of a coke can but only 1cm long?'. I can't remember which I chose.

We got to Cambridge at about 8pm, but that was fine since we don't really seem to sound check at the Corner House. They gave us a few free pizzas and shit loads of chips and Neil got a bit pissed on 2 pints. We played pretty well, Wit was awesome on bass. We did have to cut our set a bit short but it happens I suppose. Paul Goodwin was great in support also. We sat around and had a few more drinks afterwards, until things got slightly odd with the bar staff and their confusing relations to one another, so we went upstairs and shared a very small room between six of us, which we are getting quite good at.

Saturday 11th July 2009
Fuse Festival, Lichfield

Good fun, this. Paid much more than usual, played to a packed tent (thanks, rain!), people seemed genuinely into it and we sold out our CDs. It was a family festival so we shoved a bit of Johnny Cash in their earholes to cushion the relentless indie-folkery. Nice strong cider and lager led to tipsy kyle, half price belly buster burgers (2 x burger, 2 x bacon, 1 x egg, cheese) though i didn't have one. Tug 'o' war, nice few games of bum (it's a football game), lovely accomodating organisers, slightly dodgy sound set-up but certainly bearable. Good fun all round.