SPRING OFFENSIVE

Over the last two weekends we’ve been lucky enough to play some fantastic shows. We were at two incredible musical hubs on consecutive weekends (The Great Escape in Brighton and Liverpool Sound City), and have nothing but the best memories of them both.

Busy crowds and good people seemed to be everywhere we went. On a beachfront Brighton bar, our show flew by, and the three hours we spent by the sea were a whirlwind. The trip up to Liverpool was really special, playing an acoustic set in a packed cafe which did a mean flat white (Bold Street Coffee in case you’re wondering) before the full show in an amazing intimate gallery, which was rammed, intense, glorious. It was our second time in Liverpool, and we’re convinced it is the most exciting music town in the country at the moment. A real pleasure to be there. There’s a mention of us in this excellent review.

We stayed in the nursery of an abandoned school, where our new favourite band (who are also playing with us on June 14th at St Barnabas Church) All We Are are based, and when we emerged the next day, LS Radio popped over to record and film us performing an acoustic version of Worry Fill My Heart. You can listen to it here, and the video will be up soon.

Between Brighton and Liverpool, we also had time to play a gig for Sofar in an architect’s house in London. It was a unique experience, with an incredible vibe; strangers gathering in a room to absorb and appreciate music. Perfect.

We have a few weeks off gigging now, which will be spent in the studio working on some new songs, and getting ready for our big one on June 14th, at St Barnabas Church in Oxford. It’ll be our biggest headline show to date, and we are incredibly excited about it. Buy your tickets in advance and get a free acoustic EP recorded at a bunch of house parties a earlier this month:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/168446

To get you in the mood, here’s footage from our latest recording session. There are clips of a couple of new tracks. It’s beautifully filmed by Sam King for King Bearder Productions. Enjoy. 

Our next two shows are in Switzerland: Imagine in Basel on June 9th and Openair Wollishofen near Zurich on June 10th. Heading back to mainland Europe. Good times.

We’re also planning a tour for after summer. It’s going to be a big one. If you have any suggestions of where to play, we’d love to hear them. Hit us up on Facebook or Twitter, yeah?

Enough already, catch you soon

SO x

I think it might be our biggest Oxford show to date. We are putting on a night, in association with Oxfork, at St. Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford on the 14th June. It is going to be fantastic, we promise. To find out more event and and get your tickets please click HERE. We have some really amazing support acts too. 

Also, if you preorder your tickets you will recieve a free live 6-track acoustic download. This is an offer exclusive only to this gig. For more info have a look at our facebook group. 

Please tell the world. We know that you have the right contacts SO X

Session for the lovely people at MCR Scenewipe

It’s Monday morning, and, in the spirit of Andrew WK we’ve spent all weekend at one long series of house parties. It hasn’t quite been Party Till You Puke, as they were all fairly civilised affairs, but they were an incredible experience - being invited in to people’s homes and meeting all kinds of folk.

There can be no better way to spend a weekend. Here’s a photo of our first show, in Leamington Spa, taken by Sam King.

Sam followed us around with a camera all weekend and will be making a film about the whole thing soon. If you haven’t seen the last one he did for us, you should, because it is awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGt0vtZ8rE

Next up is a big show on Wednesday at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, with the awesome Polarsets. We’ll be on fairly early so make sure you get along in good time. It’s going to be a fantastic night.

We’ll also be announcing details of our next Oxford show this week, hopefully, so keep a look out for that.

See you soon.

SO x

We are back on the road again this weekend after we had such an awesome time playing the living room shows about a month back. We got lots and lots of requests so we have tried to do as many as we can this time. Mostly in Oxfordshire, but we are performing Friday evening, Saturday brunch, Saturday afternoon snacks, Saturday early tea, Saturday evening and Sunday evening. You might well see a white van pull up in the drive next to you and five shabbily dressed guys fall out. If so, say hi. Anyway, we are bringing a camera so will keep you updated.

So six shows in total this weekend and then London on Wednesday, which is going to be a wicked show. Polarsets are flippin brilliant. Facebook event here.

You might be pleased to know that we are writing like mad men. Here is our working out to prove it….

There will be an announcement about a big ol’ beautiful Oxford show very very soon. SO watch this space.

|SO X 

Yesterday was spent in the van. All of it. Basel is a long long way away from Oxford. It nearly got very interesting when our key snapped in half just 150 km outside of Calais. Some cunning carjacker skills got the thing at least as far as England, where a wizard fixed the problems and gave us a new key while we waited. Some people. Evidence is here:

Anyway, none of this is very important. What is important is that the night before, Friday 13th was scarily awesome. We were in Basel, for the second time, and for the second time it was the perfect way to finish the tour.

It’s already becoming one of our favourite places to play. Beautifully treated from the moment we arrived at Parterre, we played a show to a wonderful packed crowd, who asked us back onstage for three encores. Three! Humbling indeed. We’re back in Basel in June for Imagine Festival, and it really can’t come soon enough.

What a tour it’s been. From going to new towns and meeting new people and discovering new bands up and down the UK, to an absolutely perfect series of gigs on the continent - we are truly blessed.

We’re back now, and we’ll be spending most of the summer here working on new material and releases, along with a fair few festival dates here and there (confirmed so far are Imagine, Kendal Calling and Truck, with more to be announced). On Thursday we’re back in London for a show at Queen of Hoxton (http://www.facebook.com/events/309942385738166/). Come and help us recover from post-tour depression. Please.

We leave you with this photo from Mainz, which just about sums up the tour for us. It was a lot of fun. See you soon. Love from SO

The sun is shining in the beautiful city of Heidelberg. Well, the outskirts of Heidelberg. The hotel is just out of the city centre, but I imagine that it’s sunny there too. Last night was (and I hate to sound repetitive) awesome. Thank you to everyone who came down and who screamed, cheered and made a lot of noise. We had a brilliant time. In fact, all the shows in Germany have left us feeling so ridiculously happy. To Switzerland in a few hours to play our last show on the tour in Basel. Here are some snaps of last night for all those that want to see our mugs,

AND at least all our gear worked last night. Had quite an experience in Nurenberg when Theo’s gear decided to pack up both before and during the gig. We ended up singing quite a lot of it acoustic standing at the front of the stage. Hope it worked out okay!

Okay, nice one. Speak soon.

Love SO

Hey-yo. You over there. Just wanted to quickly say hi. And to let you know that we’re ok, having just got into Heidelberg for our last German show of the tour. We’ll give you a proper update tomorrow. Last night in Nurnberg was immense, and we can’t wait for tonight.

But let us also tell you that we’ve been confirmed for Truck this summer. The line-up is huge, I’m sure you’ll agree. Many of our favourite bands all over the weekend. Come and join us. Here’s the skinny:

Get some tickets and join the fun. Hope everything’s good where you are.

Love

SO

Hello folks. We’re in Nurnberg, or Nuremberg to you if you speak English. The venue is called MUZ. It is brilliant, and a Jack Russell is wandering about my feet as I type. Can’t wait to play tonight.

The German leg of this tour is already at the halfway point, and the gigs we’ve played have been unforgettable. On Easter Monday, we crawled out of our beds in Oxford at 6am, hastily bundled everything into the van, and drove down to Aachen, just over the border from Belgium. If ever there has been a venue that you really couldn’t miss, then it’s the Musikbunker. Just down the road from Charlemagne’s resting-place, it is an elephantine concrete structure, a Second World War bunker built to house up to 2000 people, which has now been converted into a seemingly infinite labyrinth of rehearsal rooms, corridors and two large underground live gig spaces.

No phone reception, no natural light, self-locking doors; it is very easy to get lost.

Fortunately, we did not. We were fed and well looked after, and when the time came, we played. Having never been to Aachen before, we naturally had no idea what to expect from the crowd. Well, as is so often the way in Germany, they were incredible. Some had travelled up to three hours to see us play, many had seen us before and were returning with friends. To meet all of these people deep underground in a smoky room was a wonderful experience. This is how it looked:

We then slept in one of the seemingly infinite rooms. With no windows anywhere in sight, it was a total, deep darkness to which the eyes cannot adjust. Waking up at 9am the next day, no light penetrated the room. It’s hard to imagine so many people living like that, but they did.

The next day we drove to the relative normality of the bar Schon Schon in Mainz. We’d been there before, and had one of the best nights of the last tour there, so it felt great to return. Schon Schon’s soundman, Laurence, is the only German we have ever met to speak English with an impeccable Brummie accent. That is worth travelling to Mainz alone. As it happens though, the gig was pretty damn special.

A huge crowd crammed into the bar, all over the stairs and the upper balcony, many of whom knew the words to the songs and sung along the whole way through. It was an incredible party, the kind that you know you’ll remember for a while. Here’s a view from the merch stand, which became hectic in the extreme as soon as we finished, as we were overrun:

So yeah, it’s going pretty well. Only two more nights in Germany, then down to Switzerland for one night in Basel. It is absolutely flying by. Thank you so much to everyone who has come out to see us play. You’re making this week pretty great.

Love

SO

Yo everybody,

After a nice little rest weekend, we’ve literally just arrived in Europe with clean underwear and washed hairs to play our last five shows of this tour. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who’s come to see us, bought our stuffs, allowed us to cramp their homes, and generally made us feel welcome in towns that we don’t know all too well. We feel super lucky to have met such awesome people.

There’s something else we want to tell you about though. On Saturday 31st March we celebrated the launch of our physical singles in Truck Store, and then went into some strangers’ living rooms to play two more sets (they knew we were coming, by the way). I don’t know what it was like being at one of these parties, but to be invited into the houses of people we’d never met before and play for small but amazing audiences has been one of the highlights of our time as a band. Thanks again for having us. It was awesome.

We want to do it again. And soon - the last weekend of April, to be precise. So we’d like to know if anyone would be up for having us. It doesn’t have to be a house party either: whether it’s your weekend workplace, your office stationary cupboard, your barbecue, or your mum’s kitchen, we’re interested. Also, because we love food as much as the next animal, we’d like to do sets at meal times. Approximately these ones:

Friday 27th: celebratory end-of-week meal (8/9pm)

Saturday 28th: fast-breaking (10am)

Saturday 28th: lunch o’clock (1.30pm)

Saturday 28th: afternoon tea (5pm)

Saturday 28th: late dinner (9pm)

Sunday 29th: weekend-coda supper (7pm)

Just drop us a line at party@springoffensive.co.uk with whichever one of these times you’re interested in, and we’ll see if it can happen. Or if you don’t think you can make it work but would like to contribute, please tell any friends or family you know who might be interested. We’d be hugely grateful, and you’d be helping us out immensely by sharing this and spreading it around.

We think this could be a really special weekend, and are massively hugely ridiculously up for doing it. Send us a message if you reckon you are too. It all depends on you guys.

SO x

PS - a word of warning: while we would love to travel as widely as we can for these shows, we might struggle to go too far from the South. Unless you can hook us up with some copters, which would be pretty fly (pun intended).