The following article was written by British band, Spring Offensive:

We’ve been off tour for a good few days now. All the laundry’s done, we’re well fed and rested, and ready to start it all again. We’ve got about 20 dates booked over the next three months, and more on the horizon. If we could play every night, we would, but unfortunately we’ve all got to earn money somehow, because Lord knows this isn’t enough.

But we really have to keep playing. This became bleakly apparent when we ventured to the North for the first time. We arrived in Manchester having just spent about five hours in a traffic jam. Feeling remarkably unwell, and with heads hurting from mindbending travel games, we tumbled out of Helsing next to the Night & Day Cafe. At the risk of tedious repetition, it’s worth mentioning as an aside that of the four acts booked to play the gig, only us and one other showed up. The other was a pair of charming Russian electro types, Rubika, now native to Manchester.

Within minutes of arrival, we were greeted by a reviewer from Stereoboard. He was there to interview us and review the gig. We got down to the interview before we went onstage. It was essentially a bleak discussion about the trials and tribulations of being an unsigned band that doesn’t quite fit into any trends. At the end, he said that he’d just edit it down to the bits where we were promoting ourselves and our releases. I think that is something we need to work on.

He did write a rather nice review of our gig though, which took place in front of the smallest crowd of the tour (so far…). As soon as we’d finished and smuggled some beers into the van (and apologised to Rubika, who were about to go on), we were off to Newcastle, about three hours further north. We stopped off at a service station outside Leeds, where two of us tucked into our second Burger King of the day. The meaty monarch played havoc inside my stomach as I fitfully slept my way up the M1. I vow never to visit him again.

Now, I don’t know much about Newcastle, but apparently there’s one area of the city where only the Geordies go of a weekend evening. This is where all the bars and clubs are, the area that draws all the football hooligans, the stag nights, the vomit, the police. It’s essentially only one square. This is where our gig was. We were apprehensive. I mean, people could tell that we were Southern pansies by the fact that none of us were wearing short sleeve shirts on a brisk night right in the middle of the cold snap. But the thing is, these reputations are always exaggerated. In the event, it was fine, if a little hectic during load out. The gig itself is best not mentioning. A small crowd was frightened away by an earnest singer-songwriter’s weighty hour-long set, leaving us to pick up the pieces. When it was over, we looked at each other, as if to say, “so, that’s a tour, is it?”

Suddenly, life goes on. Tucking into a greasy full English breakfast at yet another service station somewhere just south of the Scottish border, it was hard to say what we’d got out of the whole experience. No, we hadn’t lost any money, but we hadn’t really made any either. Had we reached new fans? No idea. Had anyone bothered to listen to our free download? We’ll never know unless they tell us. Had we got better at playing live? Possibly. One thing we could definitely take home with us though, was a palpable and growing sense of self-belief. We’ll keep going, alright, make no mistake. And if one person turns up next time we’re in Newcastle, we’ll do our damndest to make it the best gig they’ve ever been to.

You may eat good food and know you’ll sleep in a bed, but you just don’t get the same sense of self-worth at home. You just get bored. Please God, get me to the next gig.

Oh, and thanks a million to everyone who had us to stay, bought our records, downloaded the new record and came along to a show during the tour. Thank you.

See what we got up to in Newcastle as a present for Stereoboard below.