News Tour Diary: Life In Film (Part One)

Life In Film have quite a lot going on at the moment. They’ve their debut single out in a couple of weeks (‘The Idiot’, due 14th November), they’ve worked with Kate Moross on a new video, they’ve been in the studio with Stephen Street putting the finishing touches to their first full-length (due early 2012)… Busy times. They’re also currently on tour, and keeping us up-to-date with all the goings on from the road.

Cambridge…

First night of the tour was a stop off at the Cambridge junction. It’s great to see the rifles again! Our backstage room smells somewhere between a damp dog and cat piss, an interesting blend. It’s a pretty big venue 850 capacity, when we walked out onstage there was a man at the front who had little to no intention of listening. He greeted us with a ‘where are the rifles?’ 3 songs in and we’ve converted this man from a non-listener to a pay attention kind of guy, he’s loving it and doesn’t know why. His desire to jeer has been halved at least. Back stage sees far too many beers sink down. There is a Travelodge about 10 metres from the venue. Everyone in the party is pretty sure that we are staying there and we can just roll over the road after the show. As it transpired we were in one 30 miles away on the motor way. I’ve had a great nights sleep, every now and again Ed rolls on his back and treats me to a snore opera. Day 2 is Norwich, bring it on.

Norwich…

Norwich was our next stop, we played at the arts centre which is an old church. Breakfast was enjoyed at the greasiest of spoons where the boundaries of what divides gammon and ham were smashed to pieces. Ed got himself a hair cut during the day and we had ourselves a pint. Dinner was a vegetarian curry which I enjoyed from start to finish, pretty much threw it back up when we got onstage however. The show was a good laugh. Afterwards we went to the pub. Some Rifles fans walked past the pub on the way home and it started kicking off outside. No serious injuries were sustained. A long drive back to the hotel and a fair amount of pillow talk to end the night. Tour manager woke us up at 9 to get back on the road. Bring on Stoke!

Stoke…

Stoke, the pottery city and home town of the doomed captain of the Titanic. It would seem that Stokes love for all things ceramic is only matched by their love of meat filled pastry, judging by the volume of Gregg’s we encountered on our travels. After finishing off a steak bake we went to see what Stoke had to offer, which turned out to be not a lot, unless you like Gregg’s. We were disappointed to find that the venue hadn’t followed Cambridge’s advice and filled our dressing room with the smell of cat piss, but they made up for any discretions by keeping the temperature suitably Baltic and the toilets as miserable as possible. What Stoke lacks in sanitary comforts it makes up for in lovely people, we got a fan in for free as the gig was sold out and to thank us he took us to a nice pub round the corner and bought us all a couple of beers. The gig was good, no major hiccups and a nice amount of people shaking our hands after which is always good. After that back to the Travelodge whose bedroom window actually looked into the inside of the service station, what a vista! Next stop Nottingham, home of robin hood and the lace capital of the world!

Nottingham…

Today we hit Nottingham! we were dragged out of our stained travel lodge beds extremely early so arrived at Rock City with plenty of time for a good old mooch about town. We hit the local music store to pick up a tambourine for Deano. Whilst peeping at a few things I was asked if I was ‘just being nosey’ or if I was actually going to purchase, I didn’t but I enjoyed the rude old cows manner and sale patter. After fighting my way Downtown past the chuggers and forest fans it turns out robin hood is actually alive and kicking selling jacket spuds with your choice of unlimited topping! But the best thing I found was a barbers/fishing specialist in the victoria centre!

Back at the venue we were treated to a slap up honey chicken/shepherds pie/ veggie sausage option (your choice) and a plate of squirty cream, on finishing eating the slop we were politely told to ‘shove off’ by a Massive old skool roadie! We took our cue to leave and started the days boozing! Hitting the stage at an earth shattering 7:30pm we bashed our way through the hits and Nottingham received them warmly. After playing we proceeded to get leathered, I Unfortunately found out that beer and Massive amounts of gin don’t mix and I passed out, the rest of the gang trooped on and had a knees up! Tomorrow Sheffield.

Sheffield…

Started with a bath, then a half hour walk in the countryside, watched half an hour of Something For The Weekend and then got in the van to Sheffield. The perfect Sunday morning! Sheffield is a quality city, it wasn’t long before we all had a steaming hot German sausage between our lips from the market. We played at The Foundry which is a pretty big one for us. After watching all the sound crew run around stressing onstage all of my previous calm was lost. The show went well though! After the rifles smashed it we all had a sing along backstage then hit pub, then the hotel lobby for a pizza that must have been boiled in the fires of hell, then bed. The view from our window is a brick wall. Dom wins sentence of the week, ‘Mick just took a photo of my balls.’ He wasn’t lying, gross. We had a day off in Sheffield and spent it wandering about, Ed met Jarvis Cocker, we went go karting, the crew were best but Dom came 3rd, Mick was shockingly bad! We all had a curry and then an early night.

Manchester…

We played Manchester Academy today. The drive from Sheffield to Manchester is gorgeous, we saw a pair of rams actually ramming. On arrival we went for the customary mooch. Into Manchester Museum where it was feeding time for the Lizards which enjoyed savaging some creepy crawlies in from of us. After the fastest sound check since records began we had a few drinks backstage and then played a blinder. Security was pretty understaffed and there was no security barrier so there were some concerns for the rifles safety as it was sold out. We hit the merch stand after our show where Dom and Ed were like a pair of market traders. No one got passed without an LIF cd in their hands! We drove to Leeds after to find our hotel, at 3am discovered the booking was incorrect, half an hour in the lobby and it righted itself, sometimes spinal tap is so close to the mark it’s scary! Tomorrow night Leeds Cockpit!