Waaayyy back in April this year we released our debut album ‘nothing hurt and everything was beautiful’ through Blowtorch Records, on a very pretty pressing of pink, yellow and white starburst vinyl. Since then, we’ve been playing some amazing shows around Ireland to help promote it but in my eyes and in the words of Black Flag you really need to ‘get in the van’. So touring has always a major part of being in a band for me. Our UK tour was broken up into two parts, Other Voices and then the longer string of UK dates.
Before getting into the meat of this (real or vegan as your dietary preference may be), I should say that prior to touring this year I bought a van. Hire costs are increasingly expensive so I joined the elite tribe of van owners. When it came time to name the van only one name truly made sense. Vangins. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how I arrived at the moniker, but it felt pure, and it felt right.
Other Voices
First of all, playing Other Voices is one of those bucket list items I’ve had since I really started taking being in a band seriously. So many bands that I love have played it; Just Mustard, Bitch Falcon, Havvk, Mark Lanegan…the list goes on. To be asked to play felt like an acknowledgement of the music, the work and almost like it legitimised the band, in the sense that there was recognition that we’re not just kicking the tin around. So being asked to play was a genuine honour.
We set off at the very un-rock and roll hour of 6am in Vangins for the airport. This was our first fly-in show so, after check in we watched with trepidation as our pedal boards, guitars, cymbals and drums disappeared down a short conveyor belt and into the ether. Concerned about ‘chuckers’ we had padded out flight cases, loosened strings and reinforced things to Nth degree. Arriving in Bristol we picked up our gear and after a quick inspection it would seem the Easy Jet staff have a much lighter touch than we were led to believe, and everything had arrived in one piece.
Other Voices had sent a mini van to collect us and take us to Cardigan for the festival. We packed our gear and set off once again. Things got heated on the journey as we were sent some interview questions to answer. They wanted to know who in the band was the worst dancer, who was the laziest and who was the coolest. Serious stuff that almost tore us apart. You can check our Instagram for the answers but it’s a discussion that still rages on. Other Voices are lucky we were still a band when we arrived. A quick stop and the worlds most expensive travel pillow later and we were in Cardigan. Cardigan, and what we saw of Wales, is very beautiful and picturesque.
We were staying in a converted jail/judges quarters called ‘The Clink’. Bedrooms were cells and the foyer was clearly where judgement had been passed down on many a perp. Luckily, we escaped such judgement this time. We were sharing with Dublin band, Girlfriend, who were lovely and we made fast friends with. Our first show was at the Pizza Tipi, a large historic barn beside well…a pizza tipi. It’s better than it sounds. Soundcheck was great and we started sampling the cuisine of Cardigan. It’s the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life, by a considerable amount, and I’ve had my fair share of pizza pies!
Our show was about to start and had started to fill up nicely. We didn’t know what to expect crowd wise, so it was amazing we played to such a full room and because of the venue, it was an all-ages show. I’m pretty passionate about all ages shows so it was great to travel this far and play one. During the part of the set when I address the crowd one of the kids in the crowd, in the front row, turned to his dad and asked ‘Why is he talking so much and not playing songs?!’ Time to get on with things…
We spent the rest of the night wandering round Cardigan. We visited the Albion and met Bill Ryder Jones, we checked out fellow country folk Chubby Cat, Girlfriend and Search Results. Who all played great sets. Strange we had to travel to a totally different country to see people from home.
Day two we further explored Cardigan, visiting Saturday markets, cafés, the iconic church…and Greggs. Our second show was in the Small World Puppet Theatre, which is a beautiful building that from the outside resembles a witch’s hat. Girlfriend were playing before us, so we caught their set and started to get ready for ours. Right before we went on, the snare drum stand broke, and Matt had to MacGuyver it back to life. It couldn’t stand the beating and slowly succumbed. We spent the rest of the night in the Albion (3 of your finest hazys please) and returned to the pizza tipi, for obvious reasons. We stopped in to catch New Jackson and had a rave to his cover of I Wanna Be Adored by Stones Roses and headed back to the Clink.
Two great shows, an amazing location and atmosphere, many great bands, people, food and drinks. Other Voices did not disappoint. Coming back to ‘real life’ was not fun but we only had a week or so before we headed out again.
UK Tour
We had been over and toured the UK after the release of our EP ‘transmit a little heaven’ a few years ago and had an amazing time, so we were keen to return in support of the album. Over the course of the next six days, we covered 1200 miles in Vangins and visited Glasgow, Hull, Northampton, London, Nottingham and Edinburgh. Most of which were new places for us to play. Virgins away.
Glasgow
I’m always baffled by how the cars don’t move on the ferry during the crossing without being tied down. It will forever remain a mystery of the sea! I can’t swim so driving on and off the ferry is always a hairy moment for me. I’m filled with dread as I have visions of the ramp separating or the van somehow dove tailing and splashing into the great deep dark death below. So far so good though.
We arrived at Audio in Glasgow for night one. Late last year I saw Philly shoegazers (and huge influence) Nothing there so getting to play the same place as them was a big deal to me. The police came during soundcheck and made me move Vangins. They clearly hadn’t heard the album yet.
Turns out fast food restaurants in Glasgow serve Irn Bru alongside the normal gamut of teeth rotting sodas. I found out too late though, but I’m reliably told it tastes amazing. We got back in time to catch BRSR’s set which was pretty great. It was a great show, we took lots of photos with people after, signed lots of records and set lists and made new friends. The next morning, we had square sausage and eggs and hit the road for Hull.
Hull
I’ve been really keen to play Hull for a long time, so it was exciting it finally happened this tour. We were playing the New Adelphi, which is such an iconic venue. Lots of amazing bands have come through there before, the big one for us was My Bloody Valentine. It was 35 years since their show there very recently. No pressure then. Other smaller, more underground but notable acts include Oasis, Pulp and Adele. The place is steeped in history, all of which I could taste off the microphone on stage. Clive, the venue dog arrived wearing a pretty sporty dog t-shirt. Mo, who has a predilection towards the petting of dogs was noticeably thrilled. This show coincided with the NI Music Prize Awards back home and we were up for Album of the Year, it was an honour to be nominated and have the album recognised like that. We didn’t win but we had a great show and our first encore of the tour. The Adelphi did not disappoint.
Northampton
Unbeknownst to us, we had a bridge enthusiast is our midst and they got pretty excited about crossing the Humber Bridge during our drive down to Northampton. I’ll not name them, but their title as the coolest member of the band was in jeopardy. Nerd. I had met the promoter of our Northampton show when we supported Bdrmm in the Limelight, she has seen them 77 times! It was cool to go over and play for them after meeting them back home.
The Black Prince is a great venue, huge stage, great PA and a great room. We had some UNREAL Caribbean food at ‘Caribbean Dutch Pot’ next door, so we went on stage full of many tasty things. We had fun playing the show, people danced at the front and insisted on an encore. I don’t really like doing encores, especially the kind that’s like adult hide and seek when the band go off and come back on, not through the crowd’s true desire, but as planned. Anyways, we were still on stage, so we played another track. The less said about the hotel, the better.
London
This was our first ever London show, and oddly enough, mine too. We were supporting Mayflower Madame all the way from Norway and Blood Worm from Nottingham. Both bands played spooky-80’s tinged-goth rock but each with their own slant. It was a nice mix of bands, and they both played great sets. I should’ve mentioned by now that Ebony Alexander was out on tour with us, capturing our every move(‘THINK OF THE REELS’!). She has been a long-time friend and collaborator of the band, and tour wouldn’t feel the same without her. It helps that she is incredibly talented. We taught her how to sandwalk in London. London sandworms are the worst.
We met the lovely Elios and Terry and had a great show. We drove over Tower Bridge, so *someone* was excited about that. There was someone at the show who flew in from Austria, happened to see we were playing, came to the gig, messaged his friend in Germany that he was at the show, who then demanded a copy of the album. Life is weird.
Nottingham
Night 5 was at the Salt Box in Nottingham. I’d been chatting to Dom, the promoter, for about a year trying to make this show happen. There were various line up and venue changes but he pulled through and put on a great gig. Dare I say it, possibly my favourite of the tour. We were supporting ultra spooky goth rockers, Black Doldrums. I made friends with their driver over my cool jacket (his words, not mine) and a lot of van chat. When we were out looking for food I accidentally found Rough Trade and had to go in, completely forgetting where everyone else was or what I was doing. Moth to a vinyl flame.
Vangins was Tetrised to the absolute hilt so I didn’t buy any records, probably for the best, but I did make Matt and Mo pile into the photobooth with me, how cute. The show was amazing, everyone killed it that night, the crowd were really into it, the stage was big enough for me to throw myself about and Dom asked for an encore(we were still on stage). We met a ton of lovely people after and signed more records and set lists. Black Doldrums were great. I gave in and bought their album, Kevin and Sophie were kind enough to sign it for me. A nice reminder of a great show.
Edinburgh
Last night of tour and it felt like we were only getting started. This was the longest drive of the tour, 6 hours from Nottingham to Edinburgh, Wolf Alice got us through the first 2 hours and then coffee, Red Bull and chat about what pedals and basses we wanted saw us through the rest. We drove past two nuclear power stations, it felt odd and I’m not sure why.
Sneaky Pete’s is one of our favourite places to play. Such a great venue, amazing sound with lovely staff too. In August for GazeFest I brought over an incredible Scottish shoegaze band, Sunstinger. So now we were over in Scotland it only made sense they should play as well. They slayed, a wall of distortion, fuzz and floaty ethereal reverbs. Go check out their ‘Worthless’ EP.
We had haggis pakoras with BBQ sauce (who knows) and hit the stage. Everyone oddly said the same thing, the whole set went by in a flash, like we weren’t really there and didn’t really play it. Ebony has photos of us on stage though so I’m pretty sure we did, she is pretty good at Photoshop though… Afterwards we signed the last records and set lists of tour and met lots of people I’d only known as a twitter profile.
As soon as the van was packed and parked, I got pretty bummed out. Tour was over. The finality of closing the van doors and locking the lock, it straight away brought me down. It was such a great run and unlike after Other Voices, there wasn’t more to look forward to in a weeks time. I’d have happily stayed out for a month, or two or three.
We headed out to celebrate, Mo sold his soul for some cheap drinks, Rebecca got locked in stocks, Matt was so hungry he imagined a chip shop that didn’t exist, Dave got very excited about rubbing some head fuzz(its not a euphemism) and Ebony almost exploded laughing at our live action Aristocats rendition.
Monday, we headed home and got locked into a pretty intense jack change it tournament on the ferry. We’re all still friends though, barely, but still friends.
It’s been a pretty incredible year for us; the album came out and was very well received, we played a sold out GazeFest, Stendhal, Other Voices, recorded a BBC live session for Stephen McAuley, played a ton of amazing Irish shows and went on our second UK tour. Not a bad year to be a Virgin.
We are down to our last 14 or so copies of the album, you can grab yours at our Bandcamp page along with shirts, hoodies, stickers etc.
Our next show is Gifted for Chordblossom in April 2025, and we headline the iconic Empire in Belfast. Tickets are on sale now!
