Iconic rock band Skunk Anansie have been on tour to celebrate the band’s latest “25LIVE@25” album and mark 25 years in the industry. Written by Ace himself, find out what they have been up to in his first blog instalment…
The tour has started off with a bang with a very hot and sunny daytime slot at the Denmark Tinderbox Festival where the temperature was at around about 35 degrees. It was the first time we had played live really for a couple of years. It was very exciting and incendiary on the stage. All roads seem to lead to ACM at the moment on this tour. Our backing vocalist is an alumna from a Higher Diploma Vocals at ACM, Guildford and is called Erica Footman. She is now also a sessional tutor across London and Guildford ACM. We also have taken out a second year London current Business student, George Frangouldis, as our band assistant on a long placement working for the Skunk Anansie Management. He has been posting and making all of the films for social media and helping with the tour manager and the manager with day-to-day tasks including such things as guest lists and band requirements. He is coming out for the whole tour across the summer with us and seems to be really enjoying himself while learning a lot from the real world of a large band on tour.
Next up, we went and headlined Parkpop in Holland. The bands also on the bill before us were Chic, Tears for Fears, Cyprus Hill and Trigger Finger. It was an amazing show, huge audience, as you have probably seen on our social media posts on Instagram, and ended with the climax of fireworks being timed to go off on the last chorus of the last
song.
The next day we headed onto Luxembourg to play the first of our own shows which we have placed in between the festival shows on this tour. The tour runs until early September. When we arrived we met the promoter for the show at the venue, The Rockhal, a big well known venue in Luxembourg. His name was Paul and he came and spoke to me and told me he was a 2007 alumnus of ACM also and he was putting on all the big shows there including bands such as the Chili Peppers. He also told us that one of his fellow classmates from ACM is the keyboard tech for the Chili Peppers and he keeps meeting ACM alumni along the way in his musical promoting activities. The Luxembourg Rockhal show also saw the beginning of the tour for Leeds support band ‘All of Us in Love’, who will join us for our own shows for the rest of the European leg of this tour. We chose them ourselves, as we always do with our support bands, because of their attitude, vibe and fresh new music. Previous support bands have included alumni such as Kirsty Lowery who did the last European tour with The Pearl Harts and also Bones who include Alumna Carmen Vandenberg.
The gig was totally sold out and the crowd was amazing. So, after we finished, we decided to come straight off the stage and go to the merch stand and sign articles. We went over and we were so overwhelmed – all of the band actually ended up taking money and selling merch with our vendor to cope with the supply and demand, and we made a good income from merchandise that night. (Great lesson to be learned there).
This took us up to a day off yesterday in the lovely city of Bern in Switzerland. A very picturesque city on the water with beautiful shops, bars and restaurants and a very fast-flowing river through the middle where people jump in and kind of float all the way down to another part of the city. It is very strange sight to see: so many people just floating down this fast-flowing river all day.
But now it is time for me to go back to sound check, to set up for our own gig in Bern tonight. I am looking forward to it. It is around about 30-35 degrees here. We are having a heatwave in Europe. It really is the summer holiday for bands!
I will check in with you again soon when I have some more news. Until then, keep on playing and keep on enjoying music…
Ace
