Geordies On Tour: Kubichek!

Its summer 2007, and Kubichek! are putting the final touches to their viscerally crotch throbbing soundscapes before heading up the new bands tent at Glastonbury; they’re about to step on stage…Gigwise have secured prime position left of centre at the front of a large group which has been steadily gathering for the last 30 minuets, a girl is displaying a home made Taxi t-shirt, a group of lads are chanting for 'Nightjoy'. There’s electricity in the air, the electromagnetism is filtering from the stage and flushing the cheeks of an audience waiting in anticipation, an audience in constant jostle for the best viewpoint, an audience spilling out of the tent and bartering to get back in. Suddenly an eerie hush, the calm before the storm, the Geordie quartet take to the stage and the crowd surge’s, Gigwise is thrust forward onto a scarily straight faced security guard, we smile, he grunts; but alas, this Tardis is tardy. Its not summer 2007, its May 2006 and this is no hippy field, its Manchester. The man we’ve fallen onto is not security, he’s a terrified student from Conwy, we smile, he winces. But from the corner of our razor sharp, Dr Who despairing eye, Gigwise spot Newcastle’s latest musical export, this fantasy may become a reality yet…

Kubichek! are hurtling full throttle into the latest chunk of some rather extensive touring, and are on the brink of great things. After having landed golden support slots with Maximo Park, The Rakes, The Kooks and Editors last year, and spending the first part of this year as impromptu support for Futureheads, Kubichek! have torn the stabilisers from their indie bicycles and are freewheeling around the UK on their first headline tour, taking to the stage with fellow Gerordie lads The Motorettes, and selling aptly named 'Geordies on Tour' 7” limited editions at their shows. They’ve had a pretty hectic touring schedule recently, putting back the release of the forthcoming 'Winners EP' to July in order to tour with Futureheads (well you would do wouldn’t you?) But it wasn’t too long ago that they were solely playing to small Geordie crowds, as bass player Frog reminisces…"it’s a big step up from doing your Head of Steam and stuff, suddenly you’re out there and there’s thousands of people compared to about a hundred, and you know that they’re not there to see you, but the bigger the gigs get, the younger the crowd gets, and the younger the crowd the more willing they are to jump about to pretty much anything, which is always fun.’" Lead singer Al continues: "Its been pretty massive from the start, the venue’s been rammed and there’s been a lot of expectancy from the bands, but we’re just the support band trying to win over as many kids as we can, and now we’re doing these dates and we’ve been thinking, 'Eh! They’re all here to see us,' its benefited us the last year of touring, because people have thought I saw them before so they’ve come down to check us out randomly."

So it’s a bit of a double helix then really, touring smaller venues but as headliners, it must give a completely different dimension to touring? But there is undoubtedly a small army of Kubichek! fans who actively seek the band out, two sold out limited editions in the form of indie disco stormers 'Nightjoy' and 'Taxi' released by Fantastic Plastic in 2005 are testament to that, and as Frog explains the atmosphere in the crowd for this tour has been somewhat different, "In Birmingham, it was like the place was only half full, but everyone came to the front and between songs no one was talking, it was like people actually wanted to be there…" on hearing Frog talk about their recent Birmingham gig, an elated Al shuffles around at the back of the modified police riot van currently masquerading as a tour bus and pipes in excitedly "yeah yeah, and people are singing along as well, like, there was this one kid and he knew all the words to all the songs apart from the brand new one that no one has ever heard. I was totally blown away, it was really really good, I don’t even know all the words, I make half of them up!"

And it’s that kind of fanaticism, which has driven Kubichek! as music fans themselves, and continues to drive them as a band, "At the moment we’re selling these Kubichek!/Motorettes 'Geordie’s on Tour' 7” records" says Al, "but its just me in the garage every night spray painting the labels on, cause despite the whole itunes thing, which is great, I think its good to be able to own pieces of the bands you love. Like, I love Mogwai, Frog’s probably the same with Belle & Sebastian, and for years I’ve been collecting every little thing they’ve put out, tracking down the singles bands sold at gigs when they first started out is what its all about."