We had a day off in Paris before our Nouveau Casino show and so we decided that it was best to soak in as much culture as we possibly could! I found myself walking through a cemetary with Charlotte looking for Oscar Wilde's tomb. We found it after spending an hour or so getting lost after finding Edith Piaf's and Jim Morrison's. Eventually we found it. And it was covered in lipstick kisses!



It was extraordinary to see.

Our show at Nouveau Casino, Paris, was a hectic experience. We had lots of interviews to get through before getting a bite to eat and then jumping onstage. The show was part of a special five day run including the likes of Elbow, who we are big appreciators of, and so we felt like we had to do something more than usual. We ended up playing one of our most enjoyable shows of the tour. I managed to crowdsurf AND steal somebody's beer and not spill a drop whilst being carried to the front of the stage. This is the leap that started it all off!



The next show was in La Roche Sur Yon, which was also another incredible show. The audience were amazing and totally crazy. A ten out of ten without even trying!



We are definitely heading back to France VERY soon. This has been our best bunch of shows in France ever!

The next night was in Zurich, Switzerland. Back to Switzerland! Yes! And this was, I must say, the most perfect end to one of our most enjoyable tours. We were invited to take part in celebrating the winners of the Leave An Impression battle of the bands and enjoy lots of whiskey at the same time. But first they wanted to have a few words with us!



We took to the stage and THRASHED! It was after all our last show on this tour and we didn't hold back! The crowd went mad! At one point a fan crowdsurfed to the stage and had a little dance onstage before being dragged off rather unwillingly (and with a great struggle!) by four massive security guards! I was told not to dive into the audience because the gap between the stage and the barrier was too far...but I did it anyway!



I crowdsurfed to the back of the room, found a beer and took it from an audience member's hands and then crowdsurfed back to the front before drowning myself in it! I then coaxed one of the loudest screams from a crowd that we've ever heard before finishing off "Rock &Roll Queen" in classic style and walking from the stage with "Thank you!!" spouting from our lips to the audience!



Thank you, everybody, for such a wonderful tour! We're going to rest for a little while now and spend some time with our families and also think about our new album!

See you for the summer festivals!

Much love from The Subways!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

We had a day off in Mulhouse and I spent the whole day walking around the rather beautiful city centre, checking out the buildings and stopping off now and then for food! The next day we arrived at Mulhouse Noumatrouff and saw how cool the venue that we would be playing was. We wanted to jump around on the stage and not long afterwards our wish was fulfilled!



The audience were AMAZING! The venue was great and the show was full on and loud! We went out to meet our fans after the show as usual but this time we were presented with an easter egg!



I'm happy to say that it was GORGEOUS! And thank you very much! We love you for this!

The next day we had a show in Caen, and the venue was next to a quiet and calming wood! I took the chance to wander in blossoming nature and took some photos...



During the show the audience were amazing, even though I was having difficulty with my hands, having played so hard for this entire tour! I got angry at the fact that my fingers couldn't do what I wanted them to do and kind of freaked out! Though I felt better afterwards because it felt like such a release of energy. So thank you very much, Caen, for being so wonderful AND so understanding!

Our next show was in Le Havre, where we were treated to a rather lovely meal and on an extremely long table!



The food was almost as good as the audience, who were just incredible! People spilling from the moshpit and onto the stage, stagediving and catching eachother and singing along! What an atmosphere!



Three incredible and rather uniquely enjoyable shows! Thank you, Mulhouse, Caen and Le Havre! See you all very soom hopefully!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

After our last show in Czech Republic, we jumped straight onto our tourbus because we had a very long journey to Freiburg, Germany during the night. However, along the way our bus broke down (something to do with the engine!) and so when we woke up the next morning we realised that we were in a lay-by on the motorway still four hours from our destination with no hope of getting the parts needed to repair the engine! Luckily it was a day off, and so there was no real rush to get anywhere, but it still would have been nice to be in a hotel room with a bed and a shower and a lovely restaurant nearby! Eventually a pickup truck pulled up alongside us with all the necessary parts and our engine was fixed by a charming yet ultimately strange German.



Off we went! We reached our hotel at about 8pm and so a quick meal later we were all in our beds fast asleep, saving our energy for the journey tomorrow to...

...Basel, Switzerland! The venue was beautiful and massive! The people were beautiful and crazy! And at some point a young lady threw her bra and it landed perfectly on my guitar neck just as I was starting "Strawberry Blonde"! Thank you, but I don't actually wear bras! The gesture is much appreciated, however! As you can see, Josh was having a great time in Basel...



And I'm always trying to find some excuse to get closer to my fans...!



Our next stop was in Leuven, Belgium. Being the young adventurers we are, as soon as we pulled up to the venue I took my things inside and decided that this city was too beautiful to ignore and that an exploration was due! I was right in thinking that Leuven was beautiful, just check out these buildings!



I bought some chocolates for my beloved and a new Mac keyboard for my computer at home and then wandered back to the venue to begin soundcheck. Our bassist was onstage waiting for me...!



"Hurry up!", is what I think she was trying to convey here! The show was fantastic! We love playing in Belgium and the audience sang along as loud as they could! We really enjoyed the support band, The Rones, too. And you Belgians love to yell...



...which is what we love to see (and hear)!

The next day was the most exciting, because we were playing in Oostende for a festival by the seaside! It wasn't a gig ON the beach, but the venue was right next to it. We had a long day before the show, so I decided to wander up and down the shoreline taking in the sea air and the sun - and I also tried to find a restaurant that would serve after 2pm! It's crazy that nobody serves food after 2pm and before 6pm!! Either way, it was a lovely day...



The show was a short one - we were onstage for only 45 minutes instead of the 1hr 20 mintue set we are used to playing now - but it was still as enjoyable and still as challenging to get the audience to dance, especially since most of the people in the crowd probably had no idea who we were anyway! All in all, another fantastic three shows.

Thank you to everybody who came along, both in Switzerland and in Belgium! We'll see you all very soon!

Much love

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

Our adventure continued into Warsaw, Poland, where we started our day with some interviews and an acoustic session live on radio! Here I am standing proudly outside the studio...



The weather was clement (I love that word), and the people of Poland were very polite and hospitable! Our interviewers were extremely nice! After our first few interviews, Charlotte left to do one more interview on her own whilst I was invited by Trojka to play three songs live on air!



I decided to play "Lostboy" from All Or Nothing and "Rock & Roll Queen" from Young For Eternity, as well as a Queens Of The Stone Age song called "Make It Wit Chu", which is one of my favourites! During "Lostboy" I suddenly got a fit of the giggles and tried my hardest not to burst out laughing...! I have absolutely no idea why...! Immediately afterwards we said our polite and sincere farewells to everybody at the station and made our way back to the venue to rock the hell out of Poland for the second time in our lives. The last time we were here we played Jarocin Festival, which totally rocked our world. This time, as you can see for yourselves, we were ready to rock Poland even HARDER!



And the crowd were maniacs!



We had no idea that so many people were going to show up at the concert, let alone be so damn loud and so damn crazy. Nearly every word to every song was sung along to by the crowd...

...and exactly the same could be said of Poznan! Once again we leaped onto the stage and started with "Kalifornia" to find that the whole room shook with all the bodies leaping into the air! And when I screamed "Klaschtier!" everybody raised their hands!



I hope my Polish singing was good enough for you, because you Polish people were certainly amazing to play to! We'll see you again very soon!

The next day we all woke up in our tourbus in Prague, Czech Republic! This was one city that we've all waited a long time to visit, and so as soon as I was awake and out of my bunk and into some clothes I found Ben (manager extraordinaire!) and Charlotte (four strings Cooper!) and we made our way into the centre of the city to explore. The first beautiful sight we encountered was that of the market square, which was surrounded by the most beautiful buildings!



We walked through the square and made our way through the streets that were lined with some of the more quaint and modest buildings in Prague to the bridge that crosses the river Vltava.



Ben knew of the castle (he'd been to Prague before on many a drunken outing!) and so we found our way up the hilly streets and to the gates where a procession was underway.



Brass bands were tooting their tunes and batons were twirled in honour of the many politicians stopping by - apparently only the day before we arrived, President Obama had been in Prague and the excitement was palpable! From there, at the top of the hill that overlooked the entire city, we made our way back to the venue to finish some interviews before playing what was one of the most exciting shows of the whole tour!



The Lucerna Music Bar was an interesting place. It was at least three floors underground (it was very difficult for our road crew to carry all our equipment to the stage!) and the stage was rounded at the front. As soon as we walked onstage it felt like we were surrounded on all sides by screaming, hot, sweaty and excited bodies! Before the show we were told that the Czech audience can usually be quite cold, so it came as a huge surprise to find that from the first song everybody began leaping about and hugging eachother and singing every word to every song and crowdsurfing like mad! This is far from what we would call a cold audience!



During "Rock & Roll Queen" I began to sing the lyrics in Czech but I found it an incredibly hard language to speak (almost as difficult as Greek!) and apologies to the audience for my bad Czech! In a most unusual fashion I dove from the stage THREE times - once to the left, once to the right and once in the middle! Praha had earned it!



These three shows were a massive surprise to us! We never expected so many people at the shows and we never expected such an amazing reaction! Thank you, everybody!

Much love!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

A day off after the Dutch shows was much needed and also much appreciated! We relished the chance of relaxing in the calming beauty of one of Germany’s most gorgeous cities, Passau. After circling the city and crossing the mountains that surrounded it a few times (our driver was hard pressed to find a route with big enough roads for our tourbus!) we finally made it to our hotel and checked in. The urge to go out and explore overtook us, and we decided to go into the city for a meal – our hotel was only just over the river at the edge of the city. Crossing the river to get into the city at sunset was a lucky moment, as we got to see some really beautiful sights…



After much searching we finally found a few restaurants that were open (it was a Sunday, after all!) along the river and I decided on a certain place that I liked the look of. It turned out to be a good choice, as the meal was one of the best I’ve had in a while! This is a happy face!



Good food makes a happy Billy! After such a good meal, walking along the river was the only appropriate way back to the hotel!



The hotel at night looked rather pretty, so I decided to take a picture for you all to see…



The next morning we set off on the road to Austria for our show at Posthof in Linz! Linz was also a rather beautiful city! We have been extremely lucky on this tour. The Posthof was a large venue and there were lots of dressing rooms and they all had beds inside so that we could rest our heads if we were feeling sleepy - but we were having such a good time that there really was no chance of us wanting to rest our heads. Before the show we all watched the fascinating vocal stylings of our support act, Trouble Over Tokyo. He is also English, though he moved out to Vienna, Austria six months ago and so we thought it would be great to have him play with us. He’s like a cross between Frou Frou and Michael Jackson – what a combination! Watching him filled us with excitement and we were all ready to jump on that stage and start rocking out!



During our show we truly realised how crazy the Austrians are. We were also happy to see that many people in the audience that night had seen us play last year at Frequency festival. The place felt like it was erupting and we were having a great time onstage. It was awesome to see the crowdsurfers and the beautiful flow of the dancing bodies in the circle pit!



I couldn’t help but take a big leap from the drumkit!



The next day we set off for Graz, where we would play at the Orpheum. Graz was also a beautiful city and the Orpheum was another beautiful venue! In the dressing room we had an old honky-tonk piano that was so out of tune it was painful to the ears! So instead of playing the piano we decided to sing songs with my guitar as accompaniment – as usual!



It would have been nice to have some piano thrown in there too though!

The audience were so loud!



We were beginning to believe that Austrian audiences (Graz in particular!) are one of the craziest in the world!

Our last Austrian show for this tour was officially labelled as Bregenz, but it actually took place in a solitary little town near Bregenz called Dornbirn. We opened the door of the tour bus to find a fast flowing river and, just on the other side of it, the venue, which was surrounded by trees and a steep slope from where the river was flowing. We crossed a bridge to the venue and decided immediately that a walk up the hillside outside the venue would be a great idea. I decided to take my acoustic guitar with me because at that moment there was nothing more beautiful to me than the idea of playing it whilst sitting by the river and watching it flow hurriedly downhill over the rocks. The river was helped along by large gradual steps that sloped down the hillside, and in one of my crazier moments I leapt from moist and slippery rock to moist and slippery rock (with my guitar in my hands!) and began playing songs to the trees and the sky!



I found a nice position in the middle of the river on some rocks and began rocking out before realising that the water was rising and if I also realised that if I wanted to keep myself dry then I’d better make my way back to the banks very quickly!



The show was the hottest show we’ve played so far on this tour. We were dripping with sweat and so were the audience! What an incredible place Austria is! During “Rock & Roll Queen” I crowdsurfed to the bar and the barman handed me a tasty shot of vodka, which I instantly downed! Then, after quickly stealing an audience member’s beer (thank you and sorry!), taking a few gulps and then pouring it over my head I made my way back to the stage to finish the song! What an amazing time!



Thank you Austria, and see you this year at Frequency festival!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x


***Charlotte's special explosive blog edits!!***

I don't have much more to add...Mr Lunn put it so well! I'd just like to say a big thank you to all the people who have commented on our myspace about the current shows! I'm amazed at the response we've had!

So...until Frequency Festival!

xxx

We set off from England at 10pm the day before our first show - an overnight trip through the countryside of the UK, across the ocean and through France and Germany to Nijmegan, Holland! The next morning we were off the bus and into the venue and before we knew it we were onstage playing hard and fast once again. We do love playing to the Europeans! The venue was great (it reminded us a little of Manchester’s Academy 3 in England) and the people were even greater! At some point I managed to grab onto a metal girder hanging from the ceiling to swing from but the audience just pulled me down! That night I had many cuts and bruises to tend to!





These shows in Holland are going to be great fun!!

We drove all night to Rotterdam and woke up in the morning in the middle of the city – a walk around town was in order! Ben (manager extraordinaire!), Phil (Guitar tech Pip!), Charlotte and I ventured through the area to find some cake and meet some of the local folk!



I found a bookshop selling English copies of some Bukowski books that I’ve been waiting to read for a long time! These books are antidotes to The Lord Of The Rings, which is what I’m currently working my way through. And Rotterdam has trams! I love trams! The show was absolutely crazy.



Rotterdam sure does know how to SCREEEEEEEEAM!



Utrecht was a beautiful city to be in. Our tourbus was parked about a mile away from the venue, which was a great excuse for us to walk through the streets of one of the prettiest cities we’ve ever been to. Sound check was a doddle and afterwards I had a quick interview with a good friend of mine, Henk Kanning. We took the time to look around for a nice place to eat and found a quaint (cheap!) Italian restaurant down by the canal.





The show, as it has been these few dates in Holland, was a slow build and by the end everybody was dancing and going crazy. It’s just the kind of show that makes us realise how hard we have to work in order to get people moving their feet – but once they’re moving it’s a great feeling! As I dived into the audience during “Rock & Roll Queen” I was flipped over twice! The crowd were flipping me over end to end! Some more bruises to tend to after the show!

Thank you, Holland! We’ll be back very soon!!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

Charlotte and I were home for just under two weeks before setting off for the historically cultural expanse known as Greece. Ancient Greece has earned and is owed so many thanks from all of us for its striving invention of democracy, philosophy, secularism and its pursuit of intellectualism and free-thought. No country has done so much for the world of thinking human beings! And dammit were we looking forward to arriving! The others, those being our manager, drummer and a few members of our crew, arrived four days before our adventure to Athens - but were surprisingly synced up with the time differences having flown back from Australia! We landed safely after emerging from a really frightening storm. As usual, I kept my cool as passengers panicked and screamed around me, phoning their loved ones and signing their last will and testaments. Not really. But it was a little frightening!

Pulling up to the hotel in our transit van we were ecstatic to see that the lobby was full of teenagers - oh yes, we had a school trip on our hands. This clearly meant sleepless nights from all the noise and shenanigans that young reckless go-getters tend to make. But what the hell, we were all young once and it's not like we don't make our fair share of noise! The next morning we all woke (having slept just fine considering the door slamming and general adolescent humdrum) to the tune of our alarms and went to the lobby of our hotel to conduct in some interviews. And weren’t they just delightful! How lovely! We like Greece! A short expedition around the city was on the cards, regardless of how little time we had left before sound check! The Acropolis was a MUST! Until we found out that we'd arrived at the gate three minutes too late...! Damn! Still, check these out...



What a view! Athens is pretty nice too!



Ice cream from a great height! Nothing like it!



Amongst ruins that for once I didn't create!



No matter how much of a giant man thinks he is, he's nothing compared to the will of STONE!



Athens Olympic Arena!



These guys performed a routine that commemorated the many lost lives of unknown Greek soldiers! After seeing all this we headed by tram (my favourite mode of transportation!) to the venue. Sound check passed without a hitch (okay, maybe a few hitches here and there - but they were tweaked and sorted in no time at all!) and before we knew it we were on the stage and rocking out. And the place was packed! We were not expecting this at all. And they were crazy! As you can see for yourself, I tried my hand at some Greek...



It's all written phonetically so that my poor poor brain can handle it! After taking a leap from the stage into the audience and then making my way to the balcony for one final dive before we left the stage I couldn't believe how loud and raucous everything was sounding. The noise! Oh, it was BEAUTIFUL! Thank you, Athens!

On to Thessaloniki! We drove seven hours in a cramped van and checked into our hotel, only to realise that another party of schoolchildren on a trip were also staying there at the hotel. And then...ANOTHER completely different school of children came through the doors to check in also. There were hundreds of them! We headed off to the venue to soundcheck (this one actually passing without so much as a teeny tiny hitch!) and then we all jumped in a van to head to a restaurant that our wonderful rep, George, had booked for us! With a good deal of very tasty food in our bellies we walked onstage and kicked straight into "Kalifornia". Today my Greek was a little better, even if I did get a bit tongue tied at the thought of singing "Rock & Roll Queen" in such a difficult language! Once again the audience were crazy! One guy jumped on the stage only to be taken offstage by security thrashing like a lunatic! That's what we like to see! Greece, you have the SPIRIT!

We are definitely coming back! Thank you for two wonderful shows!

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

So after the heat storm that was Adelaide we shot over to Perth and spent a day resting up for what would be our last show on this Soundwave Festival tour. There was a hush over the hotel all day due to the fact that we were all pretty bummed out about the idea of heading home after this whirlwind tour around one of Earth’s most beautiful and fascinating countries. Brisbane was a hot and feisty rocker of a show, Sydney was the place where I nearly broke my neck diving from the stage (only just making it over the barrier!), Melbourne kicked major serious sexy butt, Adelaide nearly killed us from the heat (the humidity and the people!) and Perth proved to be the perfect end to a mind blowing tour. We took to the stage and just kicked the fucking hell out of it. “Oh Yeah” into “Young For Eternity” then drilling into “Shake! Shake!” and then “I Won’t Let You Down” before the more pensive and then explosive reactions from the audience in “I Want To Hear What You Have Got To Say”, then bowling into “With You” straight through into the ball-busting craziness in the moshpit to “Turnaround” before saying goodbye with “Girls & Boys” and “Rock & Roll Queen”. Then a sincere and thankful salute to Perth and to the whole of Australia.

We really don't know what to say other than thank you, you beautiful wonderful people! Thank you for coming to watch us play and making each show very special and new to us! We’ll see you all very soon!

With love

William Lunn (Esquire)

x

***Charlotte's special explosive blog edits!***

And so for the final show on the Soundwave Tour in Perth! A fantastic way to end our time in Australia. Thank you, people of Perth, for making the final day so amazing for us.

Thank you to everyone that came down early to see us play at any of the Soundwave or any of the side shows. We left Australia on a high yesterday afternoon; we've had the best time! We landed in London only 12 hours ago...but I want to come back already!

And so, we Subways will all go out separate ways for a couple of weeks, until we reconvene for our Greek adventure!

See you soon!
Love Charlotte xxx