The Duke Sprit // Tour Diary

As previously reported back in October – and indeed heralded with a Song Of The Day – The Duke Sprit are back with a new EP and album in the can. Currently on tour with fellow leather fetishists Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Dukes will be sporadically sending us diary entries and photos from their travels. Follow their escapades here, and additionally via their Facebook and Twitter feeds. Also keep a close eye on their official website for new material and forthcoming tour dates.

Snow everywhere, stoner kids sliding around in the half light of dusk and skinning up in the seclusion of the back doors at the Pyramid Centre. Teenage hideout territory getting disturbed by the trundling of the amps through the doors. Big PA. BRMC had brought in extra subs…it was loud from the get go.

And then the rock and roll show proved almost too much for the national grid in Portsmouth…lights flickering on and off through some of the set made the mood more dangerous than my leather trooosers…Fucking funny. For a few seconds the huge sound and show vanished into silent confusion. Suddenly the crowd revels in summoning back the power, cheering and urging as if to demand God send back the electricity. Community at its best!

The crowd were upholding some of those near-lost indie-show traditions: the mosh circle accompanied with waving the new t-shirt one buys as soon as they get to the show. This I love to watch.

Nottingham snowed so hard, it sucked all the ambient sound out of the city as if to make way for us and Black Rebel only. I notice the 20 year thickness of the layers of dirt backstage, ingrained into every pore of this historic venue. It is fabulously disgusting. Decadent dirt piles. Strip lighting. Brutal and facistic the decor maybe backstage, it is such a great place to see and hear music. Olly finds a room full of cheerleaders, which was an interesting discovery.

I am shaken right through to the marrow by the bass and kick drum. I think the vibrations shook the toxins out of my liver.

Strobes strobes strobes. Black. Yellow, blue.

Load out.

Two more inches of snow. Orangey sky.

Wandering. Slippery slopes and stoney streets.

And then the mixing of english and american accents, shrieks and stupid tour talk for hours and everything smells like vodka.

Got to check out at 11am. Don’t forget.

Liela x

Everybody’s Under Your Spell by thedukespirit