Tuesday 26 October 2010

Newcastle

It is always nice to be in Newcastle, as our Mum lived there from the age of three upwards; and we have too many family memories there to count. We all woke up pretty late, and after ringing around to sort out a few people coming to the show; I wandered off to the shops whilst Kate did some press and promo. As we came out of the venue we bumped into Elliott and Brett who had just spotted Professor Green in the café down the road.

You can catch the rest of that story at www.themelontree.blogspot.com

I love shopping in Newcastle, it’s like a cleaner and less busy London!

After buying a particularly furry bag and an unnecessary ring watch, I met up with Kate, Ryan, Alicia, and Jay and Zack from Brigitte Aphrodite and the VOBs, for lunch in Mark Tony’s for ice cream! Not the healthiest of dinners however it did the trick for brightening everyone’s day.

Whilst Sister Lovers were showering, Ryan may have walked in on their driver: Damien “Bazil” O’Reilly, who had completely forgotten to lock the door and he caught a full shot of Bazil’s bits!

The gig went really well, except for some idiot throwing a drink at Brigitte whilst she was playing, although she handled it in the best way possible, “Is that piss?! Cause I love piss!”

Kate said it had been the best gig of all the tour, and the audience were all so pretty! So we went outside after the gig and got loads of photos with everybody. Once bus call went, Sol whacked out his brand new pack of cards and everyone got their poker face on.




Manchester

Manchester was so much fun, we had the best night out after the gig. As we have friends who live up there they organised an after show party in Night and Day which lasted til around two. Everyone came down after the show and had drinks including all of Sister Lovers, Brigitte and the VOBs and Jay Malhotra; which some of you will notice is no longer playing with the band but luckily he came up to Manchester and played with four tracks!

Once we left Night and Day we wandered the streets of Manchester for about half an hour; it was a Tuesday night so there wasn’t much going on. Luckily we heard the out of tune attempt at a power ballad as we walked past a dark side street and found a karaoke bar, this is where we stayed until 4! Everyone belting out ridiculous tunes, with the odd local doing their “usual” in between. Kate covered Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, Ryan sang Craig David’s 7 Days and Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl. Then Brigitte’s friend/stylist did the most amazing karaoke of Wuthering Heights with Bri and “Little Pixie” Zack accompanying as backing dancers. Then Kate and Bri covered Saturday Night.


Kate and Bri - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NmsX6Vd2dc

Ryan doing Craig David - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg4Ki7iPSoo






Dublin

Apologies for the lateness of the blog, however in every venue there has been internet difficulties however today its all shiny and working!

Dublin was so much fun, even though most of the band and crew were suffering with colds (which have no passed onto me, everyone is avoiding breathing in Kate's direction to keep her voice safe!) everyone still had an amazing time.

The gig was soo much fun, we had a lot of family there alongside all of Sister Lovers gang, as this was their hometown gig. Everyone got down early which is the advice on this tour as there are TWO support acts! Remember that for the next couple of gigs.

We had a day off after the gig, so we all partied it up in Whelan's on the Sunday night with friends of Ryan's. After about 3am I could feel my cold coming on so I had to retire to my bed, however everyone else partied up til the early hours of the morning in Kate and Ryan's hotel room.






On our day off, Kate had to get up early and do a day of radio interviews and promo so once she got back she practically dropped into bed, so there wasn't much wondering around Dublin as we would have liked!

Belfast

We woke up in the car park of the student bar right beside all the dustbins. I had to hurry as Kate had a radio interview and everyone forgot to wake me up. Once I got into the venue I decided to avoid showering as the bins probably could have cleaned me up just the same. Baby wipes do a good enough job sometimes; plus I knew we would have a hotel tonight so I thought I could live a day without a wash. Touring is quite similar to being at a festival; that same dirty feeling.

Our Mama is Irish so we have always holidayed in Ireland and we did Irish dancing and joined an endless amount of Irish music groups when we were in school; and Kate ended up played Maggie In The Woods on tin whistle in the radio interview and her new single ‘Later On’.

You can catch the video on www.katenash.co.uk/video



Our older sister, Clare, joined us in Belfast later on in the evening, she was ridiculously hung over and her flight got delayed by a few hours. The rest of the day was spent moping around the dressing rooms, and occasionally wondering into the town and looking at the architecture/shopping.

The show went really well and the crowd were so enthusiastic; and we met two really nice girls after the show and they were the cutest fans!

Friday 15 October 2010

Professional Newcastle

Today Brett and Elliott spotted Professor Green in a cafe in Newcastle, and we found out he was playing the same night down the road. As I have a secret crush on Pro G I tweeted him and crossed my fingers he would appear and propose.

@ come down to @katenash - WE'RE DOWN THE ROAD AT THE O2 ACADEMY


As I had a sneaky nap before the show, I missed out on Professor Green's "people" getting in touch with Kate's "people" and arranging to hang out after the show, in conversation they mentioned that he thought she was a bit of alright and quite fancied her, and in response Ian (tour manager) said "Oh well her boyfriend, Ryan Jarman, is here with her tonight." 

There had been nothing seedy about the arrangement to all hang out, we genuinely thought it would be band and crew all hanging out and having a couple of drinks. However later on in the evening, Ian received another phone call calling the after show party off, as "now we know her boyfriend is here we aren't gonna bother coming down."

I think it would be wise of Professor Green to speak to Christine.

Monday 11 October 2010

Limerick

We had a day off in limerick on Thursday; unfortunately we didn’t get into Limerick till around 4 in the afternoon so the day off was technically more of an evening. Either way it was nice as we had a hotel room for the evening and got to get a proper clean.

Kate rung me as we got into our rooms and was really upset saying her room was dirty and the bed wasn’t made, so I went upstairs to see whether she was being serious or just being a bit of a diva! When I got to her door, I could hear Elliott screaming something about a pool, as I opened the door there was this massive long corridor leading to a balcony, which was off the living room with a pool table and a kitchen. Kate had the penthouse suite, which was the entire top floor; it’s bigger than Kate’s flat!



Around 6 we went into town for breakfast, and we found a nice café which did all sorts of delicious sandwiches, however it was the most un-Irish café and the lovely waiter man would tell us to “Have a nice time” whenever he brought our food to the table. After Kate spent a silly amount in HMV and nearly bought Katy Perry’s album to feed her addiction we all went our separate ways and met up later for a party in the penthouse! The party turned out to be watching the Simpson’s and eating some Chinese.

Kate played last night in a bar called Dolan’s, the staff were so lovely and the food was amazing! It was one of the smallest venues Kate has played in a while and it was a shame that the football was on as during the support acts a lot of people were watching the game. Kate went on just after the game had finished and unfortunately Ireland lost but that definitely didn’t dampen the crowd’s mood; it was packed!

Friday 8 October 2010

Birmingham

I’ve been to Birmingham loads of time so it was nice to be in a city where I knew where everything was, so it was easier to find a place to eat and if we needed anything we knew where to go. One of Kate’s long time family friend and mine, Eoin, is now living up here for university so we met up with him and he spent the day hanging around with us.

Kate got to do some really cool interviews about Roald Dahl and John Cooper Clarke so she couldn’t join us for lunch. Eoin, Alicia (Kate’s PA and friend), Bridgitte Aphrodite, Jay, Ollie and Zach went out for Wagamamas for lunch. 



Luckily enough there was a massive warehouse type of vintage shop right next door to the venue called Cow, so as Kate was doing some phoners (industry lingo for phone interviews) she managed to run next door and buy about eight full bags worth of vintage goods!

The show went really well, to such an extent that one of Eoin’s friends who had never seen Kate before, burst into tears during ”Birds”, thank god Kate can still make twenty year old boys cry!

We were going to hit B-HAM town as bus call was at 2am however our sister Clare was driving back to London, Ryan (Jarman) went back with her too as he has a DJ set tonight so the mood frizzled out and all got on the bus on time and slept through the night. We’ve have woken up to a day off in Limerick today, somehow we managed to sleep through a ferry journey. 






Oxford

I took an extra day off to recover from tour and generally sort my shit out, so I missed out on Bexhill. Kate said it was a really good gig and when she sang Foundations she missed not having Supercute on stage so she invited a few people from the audience to join her.

I rejoined the tour yesterday in Oxford, much later than I had planned to. I have a few uni friends who live around there so they drove down and I jumped in on a lift. I got there just in time to see Sister Lovers, who consist of Michael Slowey (our cousin), Chad Brady and Ciaran Krogan. They are Irish born and breed and so much better than Boyzone and/or Westlife.

(This could be because I have not forgiven Ronan Keating for cheating on his wife.)


For the UK tour Kate is having two support acts, which is making touring even more fun! Obviously nothing could replace the cuteness of Supercute but now there is twice as many people as there was before! The second support is Bridgitte Aphrodite; an amazing friend of ours, Bromley born and breed with more energy on stage than a Redbull and more glitter than a drag queen! She usually goes on stage solo but has recently got herself a band: Jay, Zack, and Ollie. And how much of a small world can this be that Ollie went to the same secondary school and Kate and I!


Both bands were amazing and our mum and dad made it down to the gig just as Kate was going on, they haven’t seen the show with all the new set and Sol in it, so they were bloody loving it! Plus a man asked his girlfriend to marry him during the show!!

After the show we all went and had cocktails in Bar Aroma and may have had a little too much fun as we were an hour late for bus call! Don, our trust worthy driver was super cool about it as he always is, and as Birmingham isn’t too far we weren’t in a ridiculous amount of trouble.








Monday 4 October 2010

The Chocolate Day - 25/09

We partied in the SWITZ-ER-LAND (sung as Miley Cyrus' party in the USA).

Tour manager Ian celebrated his birthday in private all day Friday. As Kate and I tried to not give him any macaroons right after Kate's gig (around 10pm) he confessed to us that it was his birthday. None of us had known and all of us were so annoyed we had treated the day as normal. So as he packed up the bus we luckily had bought millions of chocolates and cakes and organised a VIP area in the venue which turned into the club night "Switch".

Massive bottles of champagne and vodka were provided and we all partied til the early hours however Ian isn't the biggest fan of house/techno/hip hop but it's the thought that counts, right!?

helen.x