LOVE LETTER FROM TOUR (Patreon)

Secret demo club - how are you? Greetings from Prague!

What a joy it is to be on tour. I know I’ve been on tour forever - certainly away from home for what feels like forever. But naturally this run of headline shows has a different flavour to my previous adventures. All the travelling around usually wears me out and we’ve certainly had some looong drives on this run (this Warsaw to Prague trek has been gnarly, wow) but I forgot that playing my own shows would recharge me back up, too. The crowds have been amazing and it’s been incredible to meet so many secret demo club folk along the way!

Highlights so far include a spectacular brunch we had after landing in Paris. New Brexit rules (fun) at the French border included getting our carnet approved - it’s basically a needlessly expensive formal document detailing all our instruments & equipment. Our new tour manager Øst had researched everything perfectly but still there were nerves surrounding this first crossing, especially in light of hearing some horror stories recently of delays at the port, bands being turned away or having their carnet rejected.

So to allow for we set off a full day earlier than when we played Paris in 2019 - unsurprisingly the office we needed to find in Calais was poorly signposted & no one there seemed to be able to use a stamp, but in the end everything was alright and we got through without a hitch. (Sidenote - Brexit is a shitshow). So when we arrived at the Paris venue an hour before load in we swerved into a nearby cafe and each demolished a full brunch - pancakes, shakshouka, egg burgers, salmon and avocado, vats and vats of coffee - and it tasted all the better for having made it over the first logistical hurdle.

Another highlight was a moment at the Hamburg show where I spotted a girl who couldn’t have been any older than 4. Her parents brought her and she stood there on the stage about a metre or two to my left, bright pink headphones on her head. At first I thought her parents were fans who had dragged her along but soon realised she knew every word to every song and towards the end of the set I found myself living through her as she danced around, eyes closed. I gave her a shoutout mid-set, announcing her as the biggest rockstar in the room. I met her & her parents at the end of the night who told me it was her first live show and I thought wow. What a privilege!

I met SO many SDC folk at the Amsterdam show. It was the biggest show of the run and felt so amazing to have graduated to the bigger room in Melkweg. We were plagued by a couple of tech gremlins during that show but none of it bothered me in the end - the energy in that room was just so electric. Some of you organised a glow stick explosion and in an instant everyone in the room seemed to have one to hold up during ‘Heavy’. It felt amazing to see some of you hanging out during the day and standing out in groups in the crowd together - putting faces to the names I see so often on here has got to be the best feeling in the world! Seeing you guys form your own connections & memories with each other just makes my heart sWELL.

The Copenhagen show was so fun too. The crowd surrounded us on all sides and I felt so IN THE THICK OF IT with that crowd; like we were all part of the band somehow. And Warsaw last night was incredible! It knocked me backwards to see so many of you show up in a city that is so, so far from home for me.

Honestly I set out on this tour quite worried about the ticket sales - a lot of shows were slow to pick up and the worry of playing to empty rooms really was there. My booking agent assured me that EU tickets right now have been poor across the board for most artists; I guess so many cancellations have left people with a lack of trust that shows will actually happen on the original dates at all. So I held my breath, committed to the tour and winced at how much it was going to cost me to put on.. it felt important to see it through for me, to come out and play my album even if there was a chance there might be only a few people at the shows. But as we set off the sales picked up and for each show we had so many people walk up on the night. The hunger for live music is so real right now and I guess people maybe just needed to see and trust that we were definitely coming before they jumped in? No matter what the reason, I’m having the time of my life and I am so happy to be on tour.

:) Prague tonight - still tickets left for Zurich, Munich, Berlin & Antwerp at this link. VIP entry available for all upcoming shows here if you want to hang before the show - these group moments before doors open have been so nice. Hi to anyone I saw this past week - and hi to anyone I’ll see over these next few shows!

Orla xx

(All photos by the amazing Em Marcovecchio)