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USA (Oct 2004) When I was in my late teens, I toured the east coast of the States twice and recorded an album in Philadelphia. We basically had a guy that invested some money into us and had some contacts in the States. He was an amazing guy but the tour definitely had some Spinal Tap moments! We were playing in Savannah, Georgia and arrived the night before. We headed down to check out the venue and they had a band on that night. As we walk in, I look up to the stage and see that there is a huge chicken wire fence in front of the stage, just like in the Blues Brothers film! We had a great night partying there with the manager, quaintly named ‘Whisky Dick’. Next day, we roll up to the venue and the fence isn’t there. I say to Whisky “Where’s the fence mate?” He replied “ahhh man, after you guys left, things got pretty crazy and they tore that thing down”. He could sense that the four wide-eyed teenagers were a little nervous “But don’t worry, you guys will be fine”. Ha ha safe to say we were shitting it a bit! It was a great night in the end and we didn’t get bottled, so double bonus. Lithuania (July 2017) Our first big, international festival was Bliuzo Naktys (Blues Nights) in Lithuania in 2017. We were so excited to get to fly over to a country we haven’t been to before and play in front 8000 people, as well as being filmed for their national TV. We arrived the day before we were playing and the festival hadn’t started yet, it was just open to campers. They set us up in this awesome wooden lodge right on the beach in front of a stunning lake. The weather was amazing, we arrived at 3pm and the bass player, Ricky Mitchell, and I got straight on the beers. They had filled our fridge with drinks and said that we had an unlimited supply. By 6pm, we were in our pants in the lake. 8pm I was stood on a picnic table by the beach, singing Wonderwall and Sweet Home Alabama at the top of my voice, joined by a crowd of Lithuania campers. By 12am, we were in the camp site with them, drinking some homemade Vodka and singing Russian songs. It was a funny night! The big group that we partied with were all at the front of the stage when we played the next day. It was a great gig and a great weekend! Borderline/Rock City (June 2018) These two shows were back to back in June, in London and Nottingham. They are two of my most favourite shows ever. Both shows were packed out and they felt like our first ‘proper’ gigs in the sense that they felt like ‘our crowd’. Usually when we’d play, maybe half the crowd would know of us, the other half are coming to just check us out. These shows, they were all there as fans of the band. ‘The Divine and Dirty’ album had been out for a few months, so people had chance to really listen to it and get to know the songs. I could see people singing along to every song, it was amazing. In Rock City, Nottingham, there was a guy near the front singing every word. He knew literally every word to my songs. Well, there’s a couple in the set that I sometimes get a little befuddled on and mix up the verses. This guy had me terrified the whole show. I could just imagine his face if I started singing the wrong words! These shows had such a great atmosphere, I’ll remember them for a long time. Ramblin’ Man Fair (July 2017) This was the first time that we played at Ramblin Man Fair on the Rising Stage. The gig was great, but the thing that makes this one of my most memorable moments, was just being at the festival. We had an amazing weekend, met so many great people and saw loads of awesome bands. The atmosphere around the festival is brilliant, everyone there to have a good time. We played there this year and I probably enjoyed my set on the Blues Stage more than the previous year…but this year I had to do so much press stuff to do, I didn’t get to hang out and see as many bands. Amsterdam (Nov 2016) We had been doing a few shows in Holland and we had a night off that happened to fall on our bass player Ricky’s birthday. Now, I’ve never been one for drugs or even smoking, I was fight training for so many years, dieting etc and that stuff never appealed to me. I rarely even drank alcohol for 10 years. However, when in Amsterdam on your mates 30th birthday, it would be rude to not at least try something. As we weren’t keen on smoking, we decided to try eating some ‘Space Cakes’. We sat in a coffee shop, munching down these slices of lemon cake. They tasted amazing and we weren’t feeling any affects, so we kept on smashing them down. We asked the guy that worked there how much we should be eating as non-experienced weed smokers. He said that we should share a slice between the 3 of us (Ricky, his girlfriend and I) and see how we feel in an hour. When we told him how much we had eaten, he looked horrified and simply said “ohhhhhh….have fun!” Two hours later, we had locked ourselves in a hotel room, hallucinating, hysterically laughing and crying at the same, being terrified that ‘they’ were going to get us. No idea who ‘they’ were, but we spent the whole night scared of the window in case ‘they’ saw us ha ha. I sent a text to our drummer Will Beavis, he was the only sober one, that simply said “HELP. Room 527….come alone”. To make things even worse, I wrote the wrong room number. He ended up waking up an angry Chinese man ha ha!! He eventually found us and spent the night filming the weird shit that we were saying. I can look back and laugh now, but that was genuinely a terrifying night! The Kris Barras Band headline tour – 07 Sep Phoenix, Exeter 09 Sep Ekletica Festival, Isle of Wight 11 Sep Talking Heads, Southampton 12 Sep Engine Room, Lincoln 13 Sep Asylum 2, Birmingham 14 Sep Patriot Crumlin, South Wales 15 Sep Corporation, Sheffield 16 Sep The Tunnels, Bristol 18 Sep Trillians, Newcastle 19 Sep Club Rock, Carlisle 20 Sep King Tuts, Glasgow 21 Sep The Church, Dundee 22 Sep Night & Day, Manchester 23 Sep Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool 24 Sep 100 Club, London 25 Sep Brickmakers, Norwich 27 Sep Flowerpot, Derby More information here Live photo on header – Marcin Kaniak Photo credits – Andrew Knowles ]]>
