On The Road In Scotland With Sparrow and The Workshop

Sparrow and The Workshop tour blog from Idlewild support tour, November 2009.

Day one, Selkirk:
The four of us (we brought Paul along to do sound for us, he's awesome) began our tour in Selkirk, a small town in the Scottish Borders. Admittedly, none of us had ever been there before, and we were slightly worried that we'd never make it, what with the massive flooding on otherwise idyllic roads, but we pulled into Victoria Halls just in time to hear Idlewild sound checking their crackin' song Roseability. That is one of my favorite Idlewild songs so I felt a bit like a schoolgirl getting a smile from her crush. After our private concert, we hit the dressing room to warm up. If the air outside was chilly then our dressing room most certainly was not, racking up a heat that was making the chairs melt. Seriously.

Nonetheless, heat helps calm my nerves so I couldn't really complain, we were all a bit nervous to be honest (I mean, supporting Idlewild?! We didn't wanna mess up too badly....Mind you, we got to know them a bit this week and they're really down to earth and awesome people). Nerves withstanding, we enjoyed our set and the crowd was pretty nice to us, considering nobody there knew who we were to begin with. We even met a guy who put one of our fake tattoos on his forehead after the gig (picture below)! That was an awesome end to the night.

Day two, Dundee:
On day two we headed to Fat Sams in Dundee, home to the comic (fat) celebrity Desperate Dan. Some people argue that he's buff but I can't see anything past that big belly. Anyway, I digress. We played Fat Sams once before supporting British Sea Power, but that gig was in a bigger room so it was nice to find we were in a smaller, more intimate room this time around. It certainly helps the nerves (god damn nerves!). First up were Make Love, a new band that we recommend you check out immediately. They played a crackin' set and then we hit the stage. Again, the crowd was exceedingly nice to us, even after we gaffed and commented on some sheep sounds coming from the right side of the room, prompting someone to shout out "SHE'S AUTISTIC"...Oops. Hopefully the girl wasn't too offended. We meant no harm.

Day Three:
Was spent back home in Glasgow doing boring things like laundry so we'll skip ahead to...

Day Four, Edinburgh:
This gig took place at the HMV Picturehouse in Edinburgh, which is a gorgeous building (picture below). Unfortunately, I can't say the same for our set. Due to some technical difficulties with moniters and the ginormous size of the room, we all struggled to hear anything on stage and this didn't help our nerves, which were probably off the nerveomiter. In fact, if the nerveomiter goes from 1 to 10, I'd put us at a 12. Nonetheless, we sped through our set and then drank away our worries while enjoying Idlewild's set.

Day Five, Inverness:
En route to Inverness we felt a bit touristy so we went to the Hermitage to see Scotland's biggest tree (there's a picture below), and then we stopped off for a bite to eat at Ord Ban Restaurant in Aviemore, a charming place with unbelievably good food made and served by our friends Polly and Ross. Bellys full and faces happy, we put the pedal to the metal and made it to Inverness Ironworks in time for soundcheck. We had a blast at this gig, we were probably only a 3 on the neveomiter because the people of Inverness are really friendly and we met a guy called Groovy who rocked a denim jacket and had the hair of a wizard. Truly groovy dude, and very sweet too. We crashed at Gregor's aunt and uncle's house and had a pretty delicious midnight feast of spaghetti bolognaise.

Day Six, Aberdeen: We got up in the morning hankering for the best croissants ever, which can be found at the Blue Angel cafe in Findhorn. Seriously, these things weigh about 5 pounds. But you can walk it off on the beach, which is exactly what we did (picture below). Then we headed to the Warehouse in Aberdeen, where we nearly missed our set because we were engaged in some competitive pool playing (picture below), courtesy of the pool hall upstairs. After Gregor whooped all our a$$es five times over, we noticed that we only had 10 minutes till stagetime. This caused the nerveomiter to rush up to about an 8, but then a couple of friendly guys at the front of the stage brought us back down to about a 4. We really enjoyed playing the Warehouse and Nick, the moniter man, did a crackin' job. Idlewild played a blinder and then we retired to our luxurious Travelodge rooms and watched Jools Holland and complained about Sting's horrendous sweater.

Day 7, Fort William: This was another day for a bit of tourism because the natural surroundings are so stunning that you'd have to seriously hate nature to ignore it. We ate breakfast in a bus-turned-cafe by the side of the road (photos below) and then we had lunch by Lake Laggan and skimmed some stones on the crystal clear, still water (a skimmer's dream...picture below). We quickly checked out the 700 ft. long Laggan Damn, which was a sight to behold, and then legged it to the gig. The venue was called the BA club and had Ben Nevis's highest peak in it's backyard. The place was a bit of a Working Men's club, which was brilliant because it meant that our dressing room also contained a pool table, a snooker table, a jukebox and a dartboard. We shared the room with Idlewild and all engaged in varying degrees of competitive sporting and beer drinking which made for a wonderful, if not a bit blurry, end to the tour. I apparently ended the night getting sick into Gregor's pint glass, but that's only hearsay cuz I don't remember it. The people of Fort William were incredibly kind, to top it off, and we can honestly say that this past week has been one of the best weeks we've ever had as a band. Idlewild were a real treat to play with and we can't thank them enough for letting us come along on their Post-Electric tour. We also made a lot of new friends at the gigs and can't wait to hit the road again as soon as we can. Hope you enjoy the pictures. 

Sparrow and The Workshops' new single 'A Horse's Grin' is out on the 23rd November followed by their latest short-player 'Into The Wild' on the 30th November on Distiller Records. The band headline at the Slaughtered Lamb in Farringdon on the 24th November.

Sparrow and The Workshop's Scottish tour in photos: