Tour Diary: Citizens! (Part One) • Neu • DIY Magazine

Kitsuné’s Citizens! are currently out on their first ever headline UK tour before the release of their as yet untitled debut album, due out later this year. The jaunt kicked off on Valentine’s Day (or 14th February, as you might like to call it) at White Heat with support from Dale Earnhart Jr Jr. The band will be keeping a diary for DIY throughout the trip, here’s what they got up to on the first day.

We are skipping Valentines Day this year so we can start our first headline British tour. I guess everyday is Valentine’s Day when you’re in Citizens!. First stop, the lovely guys at White Heat put us on with lush psychedelic popsters Dale Earnheart Jr Jr who have giant J and R’s on stage with them. We are totally jel.

Here are our backstage passes and our unlimited free entry cards to White Heat for eternity (thank you Matty). It’s like Hotel California, you can check out, but you can never leave. Thom Rhodes never leaves a party too soon anyway, so that’s good.

The Tobacco shop outside the venue has MILLIONS of different types and brands of Rizla. I get told not to take photos, but I risk it for the Tour Diary and manage to grab a shot. Unbelievable they don’t have the type that our tour manager Grant was looking for. Orange liquorice, for the record.

The venue tonight is Madame Jo Jo’s in deepest darkest Soho. We’ve had many fine evenings on its dancefloors, but we’d never noticed these awesome statue/murals on the wall before. We took photos of them to share with you.

After an awesome show full of couples (and a few beautiful singletons) dancing and singing we have to load out of a hidden backdoor that takes us straight onto an alley of sex shops and porn emporiums. We see three fights and one screaming argument. In this photo, it seems Martyn has decided to drink to kill the pain, as just out of shot, two more random guys decide to have a pop at each other. A marked contrast to the love and romance we had just experienced inside.

We’ve got a 3:00am bus call for the drive to France tomorrow. Our first NME shoot and interview and a show at David Lynch’s Silencio nightclub tomorrow. Onwards!