So it turns out ‘Upper Norwood’ only exists in the minds of Ash and their booking agents, because we certainly can’t find anyone in London who has heard of it! Ees no beeg deal cos ‘Gypsy Hill’ or whatever this place is meant to be is an Irish bar, and that means open bar, busty barmaids and lots of ‘craic’. It’s possibly the smallest stage of the tour so far, and not only that but it’s a funny ‘L’ shape and unless you’re standing on top of the bar you can’t really see what’s going on. Smartly they’ve done some sort of live video link kind of thing to the smoking area and set up an outside bar, and if it wasn’t so flipping freezing this would be the perfect setting to watch the show. I have to admit that none of us really prepared the best for the show tonight since we all demolished the biggest veggie burger + chip setup ever seen, and the auld hearts were having a tricky enough time getting oxygen around our wretched bodies already. The barstaff and Big Frank the landlord were a great bunch of lads, not only giving us free run of the bar, but letting us tear into the backroom stock (including champagne!) all night. If only we didn’t have to get up early to travel to the Isle Of White there would have been quite a few contenders for the Chardonnay Award! The gig actually went really well, mostly because I had never seen so many lovely girls in the crowd, and if you’re not already aware, that’s our target audience. Afterwards we had the pleasure of meeting Damien from the Undertones, one of the nicest men in rock and a hero of ours, and everyone got involved in some serious jollies. We were staying in the posh part of London tonight, and since Stevie is barred from anywhere that isn’t a bath or skip, we left him and the rest of or Irish buds and headed into the night. Let’s ‘av you Isle of White!
Luke

Enjoy x

We’re pleased to announce that next week we’ll be playing a free gig at Radar Live in the QUBSU Speakeasy in Belfast, this is the last PK show before we go into hibernation to finish writing the album. Also playing are our two favourite new bands – the dirty, noisy, car-crash of rock The Alice Kona Band and Napoleon, who you’ve probably not heard of, but if you like Ryan Adams, MeWithoutYou and Manchester Orchestra, you’re in for a treat. Did I mention it’s FREE??

T Is For Tunbridge Wells

The morning after the night before was interesting because everything was wet. “You boys are very naughty” delivered in a sultry Welsh accent was the only punishment though, so we got out of there and back to England as fast as Mild Terror could take us. The venue where we would spend the next two nights was pretty cool in terms of decor, really trashy art, fender guitars made out of iron hanging on the wall, cheeky graffiti, but yet again, FREEZING. You also had to climb a ladder to get into the soundbooth and walk round the drums to get into the dressing room, so someone didn’t consider the layout too well, did they? The gig was one of our best, the crowd were well up for it, and we saw a worrying amount of Ash tattoos and sparkly pompoms. Stu and I headed off to stay with our new mate Pat, a music photographer who had been right in the heart of the glory days of Britpop, so we had plenty to chat about. I’m now going to hand over to someone from the hallion brigade to fill you in on what went on back at the party.

Luke

Shalom! After the gig we we’re joined by a couple of our Irish female friends (Andrea and Steph Fish) who like to party! The venue had decided to turn off the P.A after the gig and this just wasn’t acceptable, so Uncle Mark decided to crank the music through his bass amp. RESULT!! As we were playing two nights in Tunbridge Wells the kit was still set up. It became drummer heaven. Everyone had a bash at drumming along to their tune of choice! Especially Seargent Wheeler, who must have bashed the skins for an hour solid. It was also Josh’s (Ash Camera Gay) birthday, so he Josh took to the stage and sported some of his finest moves to Gay Bar, to say the least. Semi naked mosh pit to smells like teen spirit, Queen, Abba, Guns and roses and some Jacko to top things off. In true PK style, as if a party is never enough. Me,Steve, Niall, the two Belfast hallions, young and old McMurray and Unkle Mark head back to the bus for after hours. The night ended sat in a circle story telling. Irish er wha!

Ricky

Night two is deece yet again. Loads of different heads in and we deliver them a swift boot in the balls (ears) by winging our way through some old songs we haven’t done in a while. Probably a mistake but whatevs. Everyone is treated to Ash playing 1977 in it’s entirety (Innocent Smile, the outro of dreams, bet you forgot about that didn’t you?) and then Tim comes out with the quite lovely Emmy The Great (Emmy The Flippin’ Woman Of My Dreams more like) and give us some acoustic Strokes covers and never heard before Ash greatness in the form of upcoming single ‘Tracers’. The night has a real special atmosphere to it and everyone is whoopin’ and hollerin’ as we head off into the night and dream of the magical kingdom of Upper Norwood.

Luke

S Is For Swansea

I’m assuming that it was because Swansea presented us with the coldest, wettest night I’ve ever seen that the crowd were so dull. We rocked the pish out of it despite all the broken strings and tired bodies, but the gig was irrelevant because the after party was so good. After Ash’s set, the venue (kinda like a bigger version of the Limelight if you’re familiar with Belfast) turned into a club and instantly filled up with hundreds of tweenies drunk on energy drinks and fags. We were on a mission to set up the single members of our party with some lovelies, so we headed out with Josh (Ash’s American cameraman : bold, confident, funny, gay) and got involved in ‘interviewing’ the finest Swansea had to offer. I was making great progress by asking stupid questions and hamming up the Belfast accent, but it was useless trying to play the wingman since most of our tour party were more interested in other vices that night. Anyway, I met some new friends who Stevie would later dub ‘The Sundays’ (gorgeous, yes, but I’m quite keen on Frankie if she ever happens to read this…) and brought them back to the dressing room to see what was going on.

I thought nothing could shock me after what I’ve seen so far on this tour, but the sight of Stevie in nothing but a pair of pink pants being dealt a red hand of Ulster so hard it literally left his skin bubbling and blistered really brought tears to my eyes. As a way of teaching our new Welsh friends about Ash and the Panama Kings, we proceeded to have a food fight with kiwis and squirty mayonnaise and have an adult drawing contest on the walls. Things were getting messy when the bouncers suggested we leave. I run to Ash’s bus and get involved in some intelligent conversation when there’s a bang on the door – “Franko! Hurry up! He’s lying in the street!” For flip sake. When a man falls down a flight of stairs, smashes his face off the ground, stands up, walks a few feet down the road and the collapses and falls fast asleep in the middle of the road, normally you’d ring 999. But we’re used to it by now, we have our own techniques to deal with it, but the good folk of Swansea were too kind for their own good. Off duty paramedics and that, we salute you. The night was over, but me, Ricky, Niall and our crash test dummy had to somehow get to a travel lodge miles out of town. Getting a taxi wasn’t too tricky, but getting the big man in and having to endure the driver’s brother’s indie-blues demo and full welt was. Relief, we’re home safe and soundish. But when people decide to sleep in the bath in their XXXXL woolen winter coat, and then fill the bath while they’re in it, flooding the bathroom and crying, the whole evening seems like nothing but a success! Thanks Swansea, and we’re sorry about the mess.

Luke

Shabby Road

R Is For Rotherham

Rotherham then. Coming from London this is one of the less pleasant journeys we’ve had to do and given the previous nights antics and how far along the tour we are, we’re all feeling a bit worse for wear. For all the enjoyment we get from playing gigs three nights out of every four, one of the drawbacks of touring is that you get a little starved of creativity so to combat this and a long aul’ van journey we get the laptop out and set about writing some new tunes.

When we get to the venue – The Vault – we start negotiating the multi-level-weird-angled stage and try to work out how we can possibly run all our instruments and vocals at the same time with only a 16 channel desk. After some rewiring we’re ready to rock, do a brief soundcheck and grab some greasy, greasy Pizza from next door before showtime. We’ve come to expect a good buzz from northern gigs and tonight is no exception. My uncle and cousin make it down and there must be some twisted law of the universe that means every time you have friends or family who’ve never seen the band come down to a gig, you have a bad night. This, combined with some technical problems, a shortage of stage monitors and a freshly reworked setlist meant things went less that perfect but everyone seemed to have a good time regardless. But, from an actual uncle to a spiritual uncle – whenever you start to feel weak on tour you just have to remember one thing: What would Henry do? Rock the fuck on!

Stu

Going, going…

Q Is For Queens Park

Over the course of this tour we’ve played in some strange places, theatres, cow sheds, leisure centres, strip clubs, you name it. So it comes as no surprise that after we load into the Corrib Rest – an Irish pub in north west London -  we’re told we have to leave the dressing room so the Irish dancing class can start, turns out this wouldn’t be the only flamboyant dancing of the evening either, oh no. After our gig in Oldham and their ‘chavvy’ drinks promos, we’re inspired to buy litre bottles of ‘VS’ (Basically this is fake ‘VK’, which in turn is fake Smirnoff Ice – don’t judge us.) from Morrisons  (Fake Tesco?) and everyone’s in good spirits.

The gig tonight is a very typical London crowd, arriving late, standing at the back trying not to look like they’re not enjoying it, etc, but as our set went on things began to pick up. We’re forced to play behind some sort of railing/bannister thing so crowd interaction is a bit stunted but it all ends on a pretty good note. As the place fills up for Ash, the VS dries up and by the encore Captain Queer Giraffe ‘Chardonnay’ Toner The Last is ready to go for the most spectacular stage dive of the tour so far during Burn Baby Burn, and this time he almost gets caught by the crowd too.

The afterparty is where the action is tonight with messieurs Strange, Connelly, and some old friends from back home getting in on it. After a round of ‘Dirty Stevies’ (Tequila + Rum + Bitter Lemon) and a few ‘Mark Of The Dead’s (Contents unknown) things really get interesting and Chardonnay feels compelled to strip down to his pink Primark hotpants and dance around the room – See: Tour video part 3, coming soon – before cameraman Josh whips them down revealing The Last Turkey In Tescos to the whole bar.  All in a days work!

Stu

Gone!

Tim talking Stevie down from the edge…

P is for Plymouth

So blondie and ginger scrape themselves together on Remembrance sunday and try and make their way back to the centre of Manchester. Thanks to the two lovely Bangor ladies Claire and Kelly for being so accomodating.

After a rescue remedy in the form of a foot long sub, the boys pick us up and we’re off heading for the toe end of England – Plymouth.

After what feels like forever (I think I have a much needed sleep – dreams on this trip have been SO messed up and a heart to heart with my brother from another mother, young ricolias pyschopath) we pull into the sleepy town of Plymouth at dusk.  Bizarrely for being the start of winter time in UK, i actually feel like im on my summer holidays.  The neon lights crossed with the setting sun makes me imagine for a fleeting moment that im in miami vice.  Maybe its time i made myself over like Don Johnson.  i reckon some sort of extreme-ish makeover is required if i am indeed going to ever return home after tour: more piercings???  that tattoo that franko has been pushing me for forever or maybe a new wardrobe or removal of all this hairy business????

SO the venue tonight is The Hippo and the promoter Pete is extremely accomadating.  I actually think he thinks I am Andrew our tour manager and perhaps that is why he gives me more time than most promoters would, because after all, I am in fact the Panama Kings’ chaos manager!

Soundcheck tonight is a little rushed and there are some frantic last minute technical gremlins but by stage time, evrything is good to go.  I personally think tonight’s crowd is the warmest we have had yet.  The front couple of rows love it from the get go and the rest of the room soon follows suit.  We later learn that the spark that sets the front row off is our now official most schools fans (of both ash and the PKs) the lovely Charlotte and Johnny, who have traveled from Waybridge in Cornwall for tonight’s show.  They hang around after with us and enjoy some bottle cap flicking challenge between messieurs Wheeler and Kennedy, as well as oranges and wine bottle cricket and stone-kicking.  The last of these A-Z Olympics earns Ash cameraman Josh the chardonnay award.

However in a vain attempt to win in back late on and with his new best friends departed, Captain Queer attempts to scale the Ash tour bus in his underpants.  Once on the trailer it appears he is about to try and hurdle to the top of the tourbus itself.  Luckily once again Mr Wheeler is on hand to save his beans.  He is on top of the trailer in a flash and convinces the hairy monster to come down off the ledge.  Not only an Ivor Novella award winning songwriter and a rock legend but also a superhero to overindulgent, beligerent hallions as well.  Tonight’s 20 Questions for Ash found out the real truth behind the Numbskull video, but that is too Explicit for even this blog.  Unfortunately we can’t seem to stop our mums reading this pish.

The boys head off to stay with our good buddy Richie Madden and me and the ‘tache stay on the bus.  He stays on it all the way to Watford but I am ejected at 6am to the streets of Plymouth with a bag of stolen star wars toys and a graffitied Swastika on my head! After being propostioned by a female tramp who thinks I am one of her own kind, i finally manage to get a taxi thanks to the ever reliable Timmy Anderson who (not only can guide you around any city of the world better than any sat nav but also) sends an immediate text with Richie’s number and once Mr Madden answers his phone I am sleepy on his floor in a matter of minutes.

Plymouth… good company, good craic and only lost  shirt this time..

XXX

ST

Ash soundcheck on the smallest stage yet

O Is For Oldham

Rolled out of our glorious hotel at what felt like the crack of dawn, got greeted by some more miserable Newport weather and piled into the back of the van. The space between where we sit (usually me, Stevie and Ricardo, the bad boys of the tour) and the driver’s seat in front is now filled with a month’s worth of CRAP. An overview- carrots, sushi, fake blood, real blood, boke, chipsticks, mustard, crisp packets, beer cans, crisp packets with beer cans in them, beer cans with crisp packets in them, strepsils, all of Stevie’s meds and various costumes, about twenty Primark bags (it’s easier to buy new keks than find a laundrette) and a stack of magazines covered in a mystery liquid.

It’s a pretty long drive to Oldham and we spend most of it either in silence or trying to open a bottle of white wine with whatever we can find. We’re all feeling pretty exhausted by this stage and the freezing weather and rumbling in our stomachs doesn’t help. Yet again the venue seems to be a strip club of some description and the stage is a maths problem. I hate playing set up in a straight line, mostly because there’s no way to interact with the rest of the band if you can’t even make eye contact with them. Although it works out ok tonight because the show is so ridiculously oversold (100 punters would have been comfortable but I think they sold 250 tickets) that the atmosphere has a real edge to it and we really get into it. Ash have some mad gremlins in the works tonight, but it really doesn’t matter because they seem more relaxed than usual and they sound amazing and angry. I watch most of their set on a video screen and catch an incident that seemed to be McMurray getting heckled and responding by pouring a full bottle of water over someone in the front row’s head. As per usual, the after show carnage train rolls into town, Stevie falls in love with a barmaid, I get stuck talking to the local racist funnyman, and Ricky charms two posh birds from Bangor. Everyone slips off their separate ways into the night and me and Stu decide to take it easy and go back to our buddy Dec’s place in Blackburn for late night tea and toast.

Luke

The dressing room.

N is for Newport

So after a day off in London town where me and Ricky went on another one of our adventures where we just appear to walk around forever never really getting anywhere we manage to get all our laundry done (finally something for our Mums to be proud of!!) at an East London Laundrette that the Kooks are setting at a table outside the cafe next door.  i believe it was an emergency crisis meeting – where to go next eh boys??? the bargain bin methinks!

Later that night, we meet up with Stu Gismore and Timmy Anderson and Ian Gambo take us out on the town.  We meet Gypo and Ben Jamie at a big gay drug party (don’t worry mums, we did no drugs and no gaying either but someone did find some buckfast and soon there is a bout of wrestling and other dancefloor hijinks.  One of the tour party who cannot be named for legal reasons actually woke up in a wheeler bin in the middle of nowhere but somehow managed to find his way home like a sodden homing pigeon and slept in the doorway of the flat before realising that the rest of the tour party were already tucked up in bed.

So we head for Newport – home of the GLC.  The venue is TJ’s and there are certainly a few interesting characters walking around outside and as for the ‘dressing room’.. what can I say?  I believe the Ash tweet described it as a ‘crack den’.  I think Stu’s photos speak better than any words i can use.  After some pizza the boys hit the stage and the packed house responds well.  Yet again, some lovely girls down the front.  Only one dicey moment tonight when after a very last minute unplanned guitar swap Commander K’s strap comes off during ‘On My Side’ but Archibald does his best to tape it back on mid-axe-grind and blushes are spared a little.

Merch is modest tonight but there are few fanboys hanging about who have a chat with the lads and singles and CDs are signed and we all enjoy extra beers and pizzas courtesy of Dave the Promoter and big man TJ himself.

After hours, we get stuck into some more G&Ts at the bar and go for a photoshoot with the ash boys in the toilets of the venue.  Perhaps the closest any of us have got to that scene in ‘Trainspotting’ with ‘The Worst Toilet In Scotland’.  Its also great to see the happless Steve Strange who entertains us by explaining how he offered to give the ash boys any other ‘N’ but they insisted on Newport.

The night ends with two MJ obsessed blondes taking to a now empty stage and dancing to ‘Dirty Diana’ (music supplied courtesy of the TJ’s bar – a laptop with youtube and very little volume).  As far as the 2 blondes are concerned, it is certainly a case of ‘beauty & the beast’:  one bringing feminie sexy bump and grind, the other, pseudo-masculine semi-naked chunk and blind!

The only loss tonight?  I foolishly took my glasses off to be a bit of necking with my lovely dance partner and when MJ came on, we were so distracted i forgot to put them back on.  But luckily they were retrieved the next day.  Didn’t see any members of the GLC though. #”Shop mobility..”

ST