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In his second missive from the Panama Kings’ UK tour (part one is here), guitarist Stuart Bell (far left with the rest of the band and manager – and former Dodgy drummer, fact fans – Math) takes us through some very high highs and some hilariously crushing lows…

Being on tour, in case you’re wondering, is pretty awesome. It’s the full spectrum of highs and lows – the breadth of life experience – that really makes it great. After spending DAY FOUR, a day off, ripping it up round Brighton at the Great Escape and catching everything from Mick Jones (The Clash) to The Joy Formidable and even Justin Hawkins’ Hot Leg (who were actually really good), we make our way up north.

DAY FIVE:

If you’ve ever seen any of those ‘Booze Britain’ style documentaries, that’s where we are. The venue is Stealth in Nottingham which is joined onto the Rescue Rooms and Rock City in a Limelight/Katy Daly’s/Spring & Airbrake kind of deal and while we’re having our tea in the bar, ASIWYFA turn up to play in Rock City, completely unbeknownst to us. After some food and a bit of craic we catch the guys’ set and hear Tony tell the audience about walking into a sleazy backstage-videocamera-orgy last time they played here, and no sooner is their set finished than I’m standing outside the only toilet cubicle in Stealth waiting for two emo boys to finish buggering each other. Realising it’s probably best just to hold it in, we hit the stage to play to 3 people, 2 of whom are definitely on pills. This is the low point, by the way. To make matters worse, Niall’s voice is completely shot so Ricky fills in what he knows (and a lot of what he doesn’t) from behind the kit. Since it doesn’t really matter a damn, we play a completely brand new tune that we’ve never managed to get 100% right in practice and for the first time since we started a year and a half and 100-odd gigs ago, we don’t play ‘Children’. We’ve all been reading Henry Rollins’ Get in the Van over the last lot of days, so despite everything, we still can’t be beaten.

DAY SIX:

After making our way back down to London, our manager Math invites us to a fundraiser for Crisis, a homeless charity. Dodgy and The Bluetones are playing and the skinny one from Horne and Corden is djing. We’re taking it easy though, in preparation for an early start the next day.

DAY SEVEN:

This tour has been pieced together with a mixture of standard gigs, club shows and festival dates, mainly to promote the single but also as a vehicle for us to play the Great Escape and our session today, which is for BBC 6 Music in London. We arrive at Western House in central London at 9am to set up for a chat and two acoustic tracks. We’ve never done a fully live session before and rarely play acoustic so we’re all pretty excited. Radio 1’s Bobby Friction is standing in for George Lamb and the whole thing goes smoothly (you can watch a video of it over on our Myspace) including some banter about previous tour shenanigans which we think nobody found out about – he’s clearly done his research! No sooner are we packed up and in the van than Paul from the label calls to say the ‘Golden Recruit’ vinyls have arrived and he’s just around the corner. As is typical with duplication companies, they muck the order up and don’t cut the records on white vinyl but thankfully they look great anyway. Once all the business is taken care of, Math takes us and Sladey (our radio plugger) out for lunch. Everyone’s in great spirits -these are the high points by the way.

DAYS SEVEN AND EIGHT:

With the session behind us and four dates still to do we have a few days off to hang out. On the Tuesday, we go and see The Bronx at ULU in London who, while not exactly really being my cup of tea, are incredible live and the following day we stop off at Math’s idyllic Wiltshire manor for some R&R en route to Bristol.

Quote of the tour so far: “She danced in a way that led me to believe she would be good at sex.”

PANAMA KINGS LAUNCH THEIR SINGLE GOLDEN RECRUIT IN BELFAST’S LIMELIGHT TOMORROW NIGHT (MAY 27). SUPPORT COMES FROM TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB, SIX STAR HOTEL AND ED ZEALOUS DJS.

Posted on: 27th January 2010

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