It Bites - Once More around the World

[turbo]

Me and Mrs turbo will be at the islington show, ill be bringing all my little turbos as well, three of them actually and there not so little so you could say its a bit of a family day out  

[MikeEvs]

Deffo going to Gloucester now

[The Cosmic Lawnmower]

Excellent show at Mr Kyps, Poole lat night. The guys seemed on cracking form and enjoying themselves and from my vantage point towards the front the sound was good too.
They did a smattering of songs from the latest album and some old favourites, (I won't post any spoilers suffice to say take your singing voice with you!) in the the first half before buggering off for a smoke break.
They returned for the main event and I have to say it really is a treat to hear this album played front to back live, superb!
Unfortunately we had to weigh anchor a little before the end of OATW (the fag break did for us!) to ensure catching the tall ship (alright ferry!) taking us back across the Solent, plus battling the road diversions, so I can't comment if there was a final encore.

If you've got tickets for this tour enjoy! You won't be disappointed  

[Pedro]

Bilston last night was musically marvellous - all four of them played really well and the crowd lapped it up.
I was a little off my game after a stressed rush hour crawl through traffic and around road closures that I just hadn't anicipated. Our later than planned arrival and thus hurried visit to the forum meet-up (leaving to watch the support meant missing the raffle/auction/band) didn't then sit well with a start of set delayed by some stomp box wiring problems and a rather cabaret-like mid-set 15-minute "we'll be right back" interval/fag-break.
Normally all the pre-gig tuning and tweaking helps a geek like me get really warmed-up anticipating a great gig....maybe I'm getting old but having it happen again in the middle of the gig was a little "distracting".
Anyway, personal grumbles aside, it was clearly a brilliant idea to do OATW in order and the first half atmosphere returned for the second half and so many voices joined in with a stellar rendition of OATW.  
Nice to see JJ again (albeit briefly) and gutted to learn that Dec was there but I failed to spot him. Apologies to Mooncat, I think I was within inches of you at times but failed to say anything - like I say...off my game. Similar apologies to anyone else I may have blanked -not intentional, I assure you.
Hope the rest of the tour goes really well for the guys.

[Mooncat]

Pedro - no worries - I wasn't at my most engaging either having spent much of the afternoon lost in rural Worcestershire (but that's another story!!)

IB were on great form, although I agree the gap between the first songs and the OATW set was a bit of a dampener for the atmosphere generally - not sure if this was down to the technical problems or it's planned to be that long??

Saw JJ and Dec (plus Tim from Darwin's Radio) - -spoke to Dec about how much I loved the new album and shouldn't he have got the IB support with his connections, to which he replied they'd asked but the supports were already sorted  :cry:

If you're in two minds whether to go then my recommendation would be to take the plunge and get yourself down to one or more of the gigs.

PS - The merch (designed by VitP) is class too

[Lerxst]

The 15 min interval was by design in order to give both the band the time to refresh / change and the crowd to have an opportunity to take a break / queue for a leak / execute a leak / get a fag prior to the main event of playing the OATW album track-by-track - spoke with Johnny M and King prior to the Poole gig and they felt that was the best compromise. I appreciate it might have felt a bit stop-start but I hope to think the quality of the delivery of OATW from the band would have left you forgetting about the interval pretty rapidly.

[Pedro]

Fair comment Lerxst, I think that without the other hold ups it wouldn't have felt such a big deal . I guess I'm just getting old. :roll:
As I said, not a thing wrong with the music or the delivery itself - just as fuggle fantastic as always.  

It was also interesting to note how the crowd didn't really try that hard for the encore (apparently the second fag break for the King!) - I guess it was just too obvious that they were coming back on!

[Pedro]

To make amends for my earlier grumbles here is a montage of snippets from the epic playthrough of OATW.
Hopefully nothing too long to get the YouTube police reaching for the scissors but if it is pulled I'll upload it to my rapidshare account.  

Enjoy!  

[The Cosmic Lawnmower]

The 15 min interval was by design in order to give both the band the time to refresh / change and the crowd to have an opportunity to take a break / queue for a leak / execute a leak / get a fag prior to the main event of playing the OATW album track-by-track - spoke with Johnny M and King prior to the Poole gig and they felt that was the best compromise. I appreciate it might have felt a bit stop-start but I hope to think the quality of the delivery of OATW from the band would have left you forgetting about the interval pretty rapidly.

Yeah, I kinda got why they did it, but the Poole break was more like 20 mins possibly longer by the time they started playing which meant that due to ties with public transport we had to leave before the end which was a bit of a bummer   ... I just thought the break was too long, a 10 min break would have done (how long does it take to smoke a fag and change a t-shirt?).  Or maybe I'm just a grumpy old sod when it comes to things like this!
I would say when I saw Todd Rundgren on the Arena tour where he played the whole album front to back, he did the initial mixed set then just announced the album and did it, no breaks, it was fine. JMHO

It was an excellent show, just wished I could have seen it all.

[Gman]

Thought it was a great show at the Robin and was perfectly happy with the break as I got a chance to natter to Dec (who was most amiable). Personally I'd have been happy for them the ditch 'Humping the Whale'...sorry, Hunting the Whale. It's not a great song by any stretch and didn't feature on the vinyl version, so it still would have been 'correct' not to play it.

Thought the lads were awesome, great playing...some great bum notes (which I always enjoy - as I like the imperfection of it) and big smiles all round. I'd forgotten how difficult some of the guitar parts of OATW are...particularly when singing at the same time. Big hats off to JM for being able to do it...and make it look easy (the git).

I'm not sure the gig worked as well being the whole album in sequence, personally I think it would have been stronger to do a mixed set ending with OATW. Kiss like Judas for instance, just didn't seem to have the same bounce that early in the set - but that's splitting hairs on an otherwise brilliant event.  

[MikeEvs]

Saturday was a great gig had great company before and after the show, here's a link to about 90 photos that I took at the gig:

It Bites Gloucester photos

Here's a few of Ella Edmondson who was the support act:

Ella Edmondson photos

Can't say I really noticed the break as being long I guess it helped  that the venue had a barrier between the audience and the stage which I could go in front of to take photos so didn't have to stay in one spot worried that I might lose my place, which gave me time to go get a drink chat to the lovely people on the merch desk and then go back when It Bites came back on.

[D S]

From last night's excellent Newcastle gig - Rose Marie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONC3a2cmnEg

[ecky p]

Hey D S we meet again,think im on backing vocals on this vid.
Great night...

[Fogeyspasm]

Saw them last night at Holmfirth. Absolutely stunning venue for gigs. I haven't seen the band so tight or enjoying themselves so much as last night. Lee looks like he's been in the band for years.
I never really noticed the breaks to be honest but i know JB needs a fag and a pee break now and then. He is a genius after all!
Nice to see some Frosties there and a few from the IB forum too.
The one thing that struck me watching OATW was what the hell did Virgins record bods think when they presented the album to them. All the time signature changes and solos. I know from an interview with Bob that they were told to go and record some more commercial tracks for inclusion and this is where KLJ and Rose Marie came from but i would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. The Virgin guys face must have been a picture!

[Mossive Attack]

A very belated follow up but the tour as a whole was simply magical.

Managed to get to three gigs, Bilston, Holmfirth and Islington and although all were great I have to say Holmfirth was one of the best gigs by any band I've seen in a good while. This was helped by the excellent venue which has to be one of the best around. Even Mrs M who is quite petite managed to get a good view from the main hall...and there were balconies too!

A nice drop of Messrs. Taylors fine beverage didnt do any harm either...

It was such a joy to hear a band so together and enjoying playing such wonderful music......

Thanks guys...