Already registered Sign In
After their show stealing set at this year's Kerrang!-sponsored Download festival, Brit rock heroes The Subways have been taking their high octane live show around the globe. The band headed out to the US at the end of last month so K! Dot Com thought we'd get frontman Billy Lunn to document their antics in an on-going tour diary. Here's part one... Friday 25th July 2008 Yesterday began with practically no sleep and a very early flight from London Heathrow to JFK airport in New York. Today started with at least eleven hours catch up sleep under our belts and a nice warm breakfast in our bellies!? So onwards to Warner Music HQ, where eight interviews were scheduled and only four took place -still, it all stank of absolute fun and extreme enjoyment!? We potted about stealing CD's from desks and playing Rock Band on Wii - and finally realising that the only people who try to be good at this are absolute retards with more time to waste than Satan HIMSELF waiting forever more outside the gates of heaven. We're off to do the real thing, and play to a room full of New Yorkers! After all the flying, lost hours, no sleep, no food and dealing with underpaid, impolite and frankly dementedly fascistic customs men (both sides of the Atlantic? are these people born, raised and trained by jackals?) we play to the sexiest bunch of people. We have a tour manager and guitar tech without VISA's and stranded in London right now. It's all very punk rock at the moment with guitar tunings and production organisation. Regardless, our audiences are starting to shock us in their sex ratio - we're really starting to build up quite a batch of sexy fans. I'm very proud! New York had spirit tonight. Saturday 26th July 2008 My alarm was set for 4:30am. I managed to get to sleep for midnight after hot-tailing it out of the venue last night, even though Luke from The Kooks asked if I wanted to party with him. - Errrr, no! I'm afraid I have people to rock, Luke?? Still, I could have done with a nightcap. A quick bathe and a shave (do I even NEED to shave? It's mostly blonde fluff?) and I was out the hotel room and in the lobby by 6am for our trip back to the airport to catch the flight to Boston. Or "Borrrstowwwwn", as the locals speak it. Our plane was so teeny even a gnat's fart would have caused turbulence in this thing. Joshua was shitting his pants but any fears of plummeting out of the sky were eradicated by the amusement of filming Charlotte's half sleep/half awake head-bobbing. When we got there we zoomed to our Days Inn hotel and recognised the clerk at the desk from the last time we were here. Some things never change. Like how total groovejet Boston audiences are. YES! Our rent-a-guitar tech today was awesome - thanks Mike! - and so was Chad, our sound engineer for the night. Let's celebrate not fucking up for a second night in a row with a few beers in a Boston college bar full of jocks! The place really got going at my request for Rick James's 'Super Freak' on the jukebox. Sunday 27th July 2008 Waking up to Neil Young's 'Heart Of Gold' is such a sweet thing. That's why I set that song as my alarm tone. BEEEAAAAUTIFUL! It's a travel day today. Our plans were to fly back to New York to connect with a flight heading to Seattle, but they were slightly hampered by the notion of a summer storm swallowing the entirety of The Big Apple - no planes going in or out all day. Thank the universe, then, for the 32 track Biffy Clyro playlist I'd made on my iPod!? It was so good my face actually began to melt. By the time 'With Aplomb' came on we'd re-jigged our tickets to take us through Dallas and on to Seattle. Phew! As 'Jaggy Snake' hit its climactic flourishes we'd boarded the plane. In Biffy we trust. But the majesty of Biffy (or even QOTSA) couldn't stop the feeling that halfway through our flight to Dallas we realised that we'd easily miss the connecting flight we booked to Seattle? The times on our tickets didn't seem to work out? We'd been booked for the wrong departure time? By the time we'd land in Dallas our connecting flight to Seattle would already have fucked off without us. SHIT! So after we landed - running ensued. I felt no sense of guilt barging past the old lady in the wheelchair (Americanism is contagious!) to leg it to our connecting flight. The bastard had gone. SHIIIIIT! Who the hell said travel days are days off???? But what's this? There's one last flight? Get us on it!! Even if we are at the back! Get us on that plane! GET US ON THAT PLANE!!! The Subways new single, I Won’t Let Your Down, will be released through Warners on August 25.
