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

A Let Down – Spring Offensive A Let Down – Spring Offensive (MySpace)

We started our tour this week. The first date was at Winchester, a town most of us had never been to before. We arrived to find that our good friends Our Lost Infantry were suffering from an “exploding bum virus” and therefore had to switch to an acoustic set (which they did brilliantly: I did however notice that the keyboardist, Matt, played with more urgency, and carried with him a nervous energy like I have never seen before, I guess due to the wolf baying at his anal door), and the other act, a 40-year-old singer songwriter called James Chorely, had pulled out because he felt that the promoter had patronised him by telling him what time to show up (allegedly he said, “Not even my mother speaks to me like that”). All things considered, it went pretty well.

The problem is that not all of us managed to get the time off work, so we’ve been having to rush back to Oxford every night after the shows; less of a tour and more of a series of trips to strange bars in distant towns. Helsing (our van), on the other hand, has decided to take the time off, refusing to drive more than an hour before stopping for a sleep on the side of the road, so we’re currently operating out of cars, which is expensive and cramped.

Next up was Bristol, and sharing the stage with one band whose frontwoman was really rather pregnant, and another made up of a delightful group of young kids, one of whom was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the word “CUNT”. He was presumably the one whose dad was standing awkwardly at the back while they were playing, not really knowing what to do with himself. I know this from experience with my own parents.

The promoter, who naturally didn’t show up (see video below), had seen fit to put on two gigs in the same venue that night, leading to a strangely cacophonous blend of low-fi 80s pop punk and mid-90s screamo for those that decided to stay in the main bar. As we had a cigarette outside before playing, an Australian man approached us and asked which one was “Henry’s band”, the only clue being, “He’s the really bad drummer.” We had to tell him that we were sorry and didn’t know.

Bristol is the home of Banksy, and consequently a swathe of copycats have cropped up. The murals are all very impressive, but sometimes the toddler-ish urge to draw on everything can get irritating. Where we parked, for instance, the sign that tells you what the restrictions are was covered in red paint and therefore illegible. Turns out we got away with it and drove home free of parking tickets. The £8 the venue awarded us in all their generosity went straight into petrol to get us home. At least we’re breaking even so far. All in all, a great success.

We’re playing to rooms of about 20-30 people at the moment. It’s all we really expected. This is what they call paying your dues, after all.