Woman’s Hour Prepare For ‘The Biggest Show We’ve Ever Played’ With Metronomy

Things are going exactly to plan for Woman’s Hour. Having spent the past two years honing their skills and practicing their art, 2014 is surely the year they make it to the big leagues. With just a handful of tracks to their name so far, they’re being patient when it comes to the release of their forthcoming debut full-length, but that’s not stopping them from playing massive shows already.

“Brixton is going to be the biggest show we’ve ever played,” explains Josh Hunnisett, as he speaks of their forthcoming support slot with Metronomy, at London’s Brixton Academy. “It’s incredibly exciting. Personally I’ve listened to Metronomy for a long, long time. It’s kind of amazing to be asked to play with them.

“It’s also the chance to play in a different environment,” Fiona Burgess offers. “I learn such a lot from these kinds of tours. It’s such a step up. I feel like we’re still learning how touring works. You’re almost learning how other professionals do it. You’re watching and observing, taking mental notes all the time. That challenge I find really positive. I just like to develop. Being challenged is the only way you can develop.

“It’s like we’re going on a field trip, taking notes,” adds in Will Burgess. ‘And just playing live in front of loads of people - it’s just cool.”

It’s not the first time that the band have gone out on a significant touring stint: their first run of the year was out supporting Anna Calvi. It seems to have provided an invaluable education.

“It is cool,” begins Fiona, “but what I learnt on the Anna Calvi tour is that the smallest things you don’t think about become excruciatingly obvious. It’s cool but it’s also a painful process to begin with.”

“There was one show where it was like ‘Oh fuck’, we couldn’t hear anything in our monitors,” comments Will, before Fiona continues: “Even gigs where everything goes wrong, you’ve just gotta keep going. No-one out there knows anything is going wrong.”

“It’s such a serious production tour, this kind of thing,” adds Josh. “Smaller shows, if you get onstage 15 minutes late it’s kind of alright. With proper tours, you’ve got to be bang on now. A production assistant will come up to you and say ‘Right, you’re on now. You haven’t got any other time and your set is this amount of time.’ Bang, bang, bang, it’s well oiled, you’re off stage. We’re going to be able to take away a lot from that kind of experience. Metronomy will cement that in us a bit more.”

Woman’s Hour support Metronomy tonight (28th March) at London Brixton Academy. On 3rd April, they headline London’s Purcell Rooms.

Taken from the new, free DIY Weekly, available to read online, download on Android via Google Play, or download on iPad now.