Hailmary Tour Diary: Part Two

Friday, 18 Sept — NOTTINGHAM

It was off to Nottingham early to play Rescue Rooms, another sold out show!

The venue was cool, had a sweet painting of The Beatles with Kiss make-up on. I totally want to get it.

The merch setup of this gig was awkward, so we made do by assembling a merch table out of guitar and amp cases, it worked like a charm as we sold the most merch of the tour, show went well too.

Ugly Kid Joe were in fine form tonight and completely destroyed the packed room, ace times!

Saturday, 19 Sept — WOLVERHAMPTON

It was off to Wolverhampton next to play Slade Rooms

We had a bit of time to go around the city today and have a look around. We found a music store to restock on some things we lost, doh!

We had a good show but found ourselves stuck for accommodation afterwards and three of us ended up sleeping on the Ugly Kid Joe tour bus and two of us slept in the van — rough night.

Sunday, 20 Sept — Reading

Reading was next, playing the Bowery District.

Tonight before the show, Whit Crane asked us if he wanted to spin something on the mic tonight to get us accommodation, we agreed.

He asked the crowd if they wanted to adopt an Aussie rock band and spun it so well we had a girl who worked for a country music label put us up for the night in a hotel and bought us a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Whit has the power of getting the crowd in the palm of his hand and tonight he did us a solid. Thank you!

Monday, 21 Sept — Day Off

We spent a fair chunk of the day trying to find accommodation as a lot of places were booked out, we finally got a place after about three hour of trying - we are super organised, right!

We found a cool bar called Chaplin's that we checked out a had a couple of drinks before retiring for the night

Tuesday, 22 Sept - BOURNEMOUTH

Tonight we played Sound Circus in Bournemouth, probably the smallest venue of the tour but a good crowd piled in.

The venue had this massive big vodka dispenser thing and this musty smell.

The show went well again, every town we have played has given us great receptions

Wednesday, 23 Sept — PLYMOUTH

Today we got out of Bournemouth and on our way to Plymouth to play The Hub/Dbs live. We got into the venue and ended up having a photo shoot and doing self portraits of ourselves for media.

The show was probably the hardest onstage sound wise but we got through it and ended up selling the most merch we have so far all tour, so thank you Plymouth!

Got to catch all of Richards/Crane set tonight and it sounded great, looking forward to getting to listen to the album.

We stayed at a sweet pad near a golf course afterwards and it had a washer and dryer.

Thursday, 24 Sept — BRISTOL

We made our way to Bristol to play the Marble Factory, it's a huge venue and we ended up getting a really good sound check, sounded huge on the big stage.

We played another good show and met a lot of new fans, which has been great nightly meeting those who are digging what we are doing and coming up and letting us know.

We retired for the night and had to fork out for a hotel, damn it! Oh well, can't win them all.

Friday, 25 Sept — BRIGHTON

Today we got up early to go visit the iconic Stonehenge. When we got there we were a bit disappointed. They have made it all touristy and charge 17.50 pounds for a shuttle bus to take you up near it. We ended up walking there ourselves and got a good view.

Back in the van and on the road to Brighton, it took a lot longer than expected due to bad traffic.  We ended up getting to the venue much later than we would of liked, so it was a bit stressful, we then had a quick interview with media, before hitting the stage for our best gig of the tour so far - the crowd were once again right behind us, thank you Brighton!

Got a call from Whitfield Crane today inviting us to play the last show of the Tour, an added show in London as the first had sold-out.  What an honour!!

We ended getting a place to stay from a girl named Sarah who kindly let us stay at her house, she had seen us in Reading and knew we were looking for accommodation, the kindness of people on this tour has been amazing! Onto London.

Saturday, 26 Sept — London

We got up and made our way to Camden, London. This place is insanely busy and crowded, we check out their markets for some gifts but it was that crowded. I had to leave as it was doing my head in.

We made our way to Underground, London, to play  the first of two shows at this awesome venue,

Tonight was a sold out crowd and they gave us one of the best receptions of the tour, so cool to play to a jam packed room and awesome we get to play it two nights in a row.

Tonight was a special one and right up there with one of our fave gigs!

Sunday, 27 Sept — London (Final show)

It has been an amazing tour, and tonight was another great night. We got some pretty cool words from the Ugly Kid Joe guys afterwards and hopefully we can get to share the stage with them again as it was a absolute honour to support a band we grew up listening to.

A sense of accomplishment by all, some of us went out after to celebrate a job well done at a crowded bar in London.

We then made our way back to where we started, Ace Brothers headquarters to get some shuteye before our last day in the UK

Monday, 28 Sept — London

Last day of our trip and we got to go to Abbey Road and do the famous Beatles album walk across the zebra crossing, which for me as a Beatles fan was pretty cool.

We spent the day walking around London checking out the sights, Big Ben was pretty incredible, we all had a couple of end of tour drinks and finished off having a few more at the famous Crow Bar.

It was an early morning flight back to Australia, so it was time to get some shut eye before heading off back home, UK we will miss you but I'm positive it won't be the last time we visit due to the success of this tour.