The last 2 months have been a bit crazy, but I’ve finally got around to do our latest Tour Diary. At the moment we've just begun our first US tour, which is going to be fantastic. This is our first concert tour of the US, although we’ve done one-off shows before.
So where do I start? In June our new album Classified came out in the USA so we had a promotional tour for a few weeks, going to New York and Los Angeles. In New York we had lots of early morning TV shows like Good Morning America and Fox News, which meant 4am wake-up calls for us. Even when our broadcast is for 9am we have to be there a few hours before to sound check our performance and for hair and make-up to disguise our early morning eye bags!
We also did quite alot of press interviews while in New York - we’ve now learnt that you should never believe what’s written in the papers! It’s been quite a learning experience for us over the past few years. We did have some time off though, which we spent in Central Park enjoying the sun, shopping in Soho and catching up on sleep. A TV crew was with us on this trip as we’re having a documentary made about us this year, so we took the opportunity of ‘filming time’ to take in the tourist sights of New York. We went to see the Statue of Liberty and the spectacular view of the city from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Our time in Los Angeles was a bit more relaxing. We did a mini-concert on the roof of the Belage hotel for Venice magazine, and we also performed for some TV and film people while we were there. Without a doubt the highlight for us was performing at the Gay Pride after party in West Hollywood at 4am! We’ve had our track Fly Robin Fly which is out in the US remixed by DJ Tony Moran for radio, and we performed this club mix to the ravers. I have to say, we saw some extremely beautiful shirtless men dancing to our music that night.
Back from the US we travelled to Wales on a tour bus straight off the plane to do a TV show. Eos excelled herself speaking in Welsh on stage! We then had a few days off before travelling to Switzerland and Germany to do some album promotion, including a performance at a giant theme park in Germany to the accompaniment of people screaming on the roller coaster.
We started July with a trip to the island of Ibiza for a performance at Cafe Mambo on the beach at sunset. The performance was filmed by UK Classic FM television and the track Samba was made into a video clip to be shown on their channel. For extra footage they filmed us relaxing at a beautiful villa as well as speeding around on an enormous luxury cruiser exploring the island - we do have a fun job!
Shortly after this we flew to Austria to perform in the ‘Star, Night and Sea’ Gala concert in an outdoor venue on the lake in Klagenfurt. It was such a beautiful setting and we performed Explosive while huge pyrotechnics exploded around us. We almost got singed! They also took footage of us in a huge power boat ( again! ) skimming across the lake - it was so hot we jumped in with all our clothes on and swam back to our hotel!
Back in London, we got a call from Hollywood! Someone had seen us perform in LA, and wanted us to appear in the XXX sequel, currently filming with Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe and Ice Cube. We flew to LA for several days of filming in a ballroom scene which was a fascinating experience. I had never realised it took so long to shoot a movie scene. We had met the director Lee Tamahori at the Die Another Day Bond premiere in Stockholm two years ago, so it was nice catching up again.
Back from the US, we flew to Bari in Italy to film a performance in the piazza by the sea. In true Italian style, there were lots of dancers in skimpy sequinned outfits as well as lots of famous Italian bands. Just before we were due to perform there was a power cut for almost two hours, yet all the thousands of people in the square stayed to watch the show. We were on well after midnight, and celebrated with a late-night gelati.
So I think that’s almost everything! We’re planning an extensive tour of Asia in October and November which we’re really looking forward to. Then I think we might need a holiday!!!
lots of love,
Tania xox
