REPUBLICATOURDIARIES  

You know that these tour diaries are from Republica's Official Website. We added them to our page, because we wanted to save them for people, who have forgotten to save 'em to disk before they were updated, and for new Republica fans who haven't seen 'em at all.   I guess this one was written by Saffron, but I'm not sure:Well lets see, so far we've played Geleen, Amsterdam & Groningen in Holland, Munich in Germany, Besancon, Nancy & Paris in France so we've got a few miles under our belts now. Geleen was a bit boring but the gig was OK, all we did was buy sun glasses at the market and wait for the Fun Lovin Criminals (FLC) to arrive as we had left a day earlier, they had been playing on TFI Friday. It was on the way there that we discovered our driver was not so keen on breaking any land speed records, a pattern that has stuck with us unfortunately.

 The next day it was into Amsterdam, much more like it! Amsterdam is our kind of city, the gig was a little strange though, it was in a dissused gas container that is massive, the ceiling looks like a spaceship from Independence Day is landing on you. After the gig we all went back to the hotel and then to a bar around the corner for some proper tour drinking with FLC and other Amsterdam locals, a good time was had by all. Groningen was a good gig also, we enjoyed ourselves there but everyone was a little tired from the previous night's festivities so we all retired to the hotel.

 The next day we left FLC, they had to go back to England but somehow only made it as far as Amsterdam again! They eventually went back to Britain the day after. We drove from Groningen in the north of Holland as far as Wurzburg in Germany, that took all day including a two hour stationary period on the autobahn, very boring, especially as when it finally moves you can't see any reason why you stopped in the first place. After an overnight stop we drove the remaining 300 km to Munich. It was a nice sunny day when we arrived and we kicked a football about for a while whilst doing interviews & photos.

The gig was great, the support band The Lovebugs who are Swiss went down quite well also. The venue was full and the crowd were jumping around everywhere, just like being in the states again, a morale booster. We actually did our first encore, we don't do them normally as we think they're a bit pompous but we didn't really have a choice, they wouldn't let us leave the stage. A lengthy bout of drinking ensued in celebration (and partly because we had to drive to France overnight and needed to drink ourselves to sleep!) which ended with Toddy boring everyone stupid on a number of subjects close to his heart, well mostly how much he loves Harry our tour manager and would like to take him home to look after him when he's not on the road. Harry gracefully declined the offer.

 Besancon is quite a nice town, situated on the loop of a river it had lots of nice squares with Cafes round them very relaxing, we had the best meal of the tour on the first night there. Dave, Jonny, Toddy, Tim & Russell and The Log (Road Crew) had a lovely meal in a small castle turret, served up by girls dressed in medievil costumes. Delicious.

 During the day Jonny, The Log and I went out for a quick gin & tonic and ended up at a bar run by the leader of the local chapter of the Hell's Angels. They proved to be a good laugh, Jonny bought a watch off them and they bought us these drinks called Delirium Tremens. Now these evil brews are from Belgium and weigh in at a hefty 9 percent alcohol, I advise anyone who ever comes into contact with things to avoid them at all costs, they are no good for you at all.

The gig itself proved to be a bit of a problem. FLC's flight from London was cancelled and the next one didn't leave until 9.30 which meant they could only get to to the gig by about 11.30 at the earliest. We went on late and played quite well but FLC didn't make it until twelve and they couldn't play as the police would have shut the gig down. they were well pissed off.

The next day we moved onto and played Nancy, Jonny & I both suffered nasty bowel troubles and blamed the Hell's Angel beer. The gig was good, FLC were superb, I think that tends to happen when you have to cancel a gig and it's not your fault, you tend to play twice as hard the next night. The town itself is quite old, our hotel was in a huge square with the town hall and some brasseries.

 Now we're in Paris, we played at the Bataclan last night. It was a good gig for both bands and now we're enjoying a good day off before travelling to Toulouse on the train tomorrow. Jonny and Toddy's girlfriends have joined us for a couple of days, we didn't tell Toddy his girlfriend was coming and he jumped out of his skin when he saw her in the bar when we arrived. She'd had to ring him the day before from Paris and pretend to be in London so he didn't suspect.  And that's it for now, I'll send some photos with the next bulletin, the camera is full of stupid stuff.     I don't know who wrote this one:Festivals Republica have recently played at are:

Glastonbury UK - Mud bath, freezing cold, wet, miserable. Saffron was sent, wading through the mud, on a fashion mission by Radio 1 in attempt to find the most outrageous clothes some people still insisted on wearing despite the weather. Bin liners seemed to be the most popular item of clothing this weekend, however someone wearing stilletoes was spotting amongst the bog. We still think Saffron looked best out of the 100,000 strong audience in her fury blue moon walker boots. Republica played a storming gig early on the Saturday. Unfortunately due to all the mud dancing was brought to an abrupt halt as people were starting to sink. Straight after the show they flew off to Denmark to play at the Roskilde festival.

Roskilde Denmark - Once again muddy, but slightly warmer. Republica, once again ,proving their techno guitar cross over works wonders for anyone needing to leap up and down in a swamp

T in the Park Scotland - Arriving in Scotland to more bad weather the band started to feel jinxed. Republica were originally scheduled to play on the Sunday, however, due to the simple fact that Republica are the fastest growing pop acts to come out for years they were moved to the Saturday where they played a longer set to an extremely appreciative crowd. The next day Republica were signing photographs (as well other slightly more bizarre items fans brought with them) in the NME tent. Saffron sat down, grabbed the first pen she could find, crossed out "NME" and scrawled "read the other one instead". Obviously Melody Maker were overjoyed and have since made Republica one of their favourite bands of the moment.

The next festival Republica played was Phoenix UK - Finally a hot one! They played on the Guardian stage on the Friday night to an ever increasing fan base crammed into the large tent. The boys then made their way to the bar to soak up the sun for the new day.

Much to the band's disappointment the gig in Gdansk Poland was cancelled due to events beyond their control. The band send a huge apology to everyone who had bought tickets for the event and hope to see you all soon.

The Paul Weller Show at Crystal Palace took place a couple of weeks ago with a line up that included Republica and Skunk Anansie. The band enjoyed this show particularly because they've been locked in the studio for so long "it was time to get out and do another live show". Someone else who enjoyed the show was Liam Gallagher of Oasis, who came straight up and showed his appreciation to Saffron and the boys.