Thy Art Is Murder Human Target EU Tour Part 1

It’s a fairly standard January morning. I’m sitting in bed, doing some editing, sending some emails, drinking coffee. You know how it is. My phone starts ringing and I see it’s Marshy calling me. Weird. I’d seen him about 36 hours ago, and he never calls me. ‘Jakey, do you want a job for a few weeks?’. Sure thing, so I’m off on tour on short notice, around Europe with the Thy Art Is Murder guys. Lovely. Cue a mad scramble to get myself ready to go, without forgetting something, like I normally do when I go on tour. 

Off we go to Madrid. I landed around 2pm and immediately felt smug. It was warm and sunny. Much better than London in January, let me tell you. A quick ride in an uber to the venue and on to the pretty fancy bus, and it was back to normal. We went and got coffee (an essential part of any day on tour), and then it was show time. The show was pretty fun, no barrier (ew), but the crowd seemed pretty chill. 

Madrid

Venue; Sala Mon Live

Coffee; Randall Coffee Roasters

Exploration score; 7/10

The next show was in Barcelona. Smug once again. Barcelona is pretty cool, and it was another hot day. Result. We did a lot of exploring, met Bacon the bulldog, and then played a pretty cool show. There was a photopit, yay. This day loses some points for the fact that we had to wait until midnight for the bus to come get us, and that me & Kev walked to get Poke and it was shut. 

Barcelona

Venue; Razzmatazz

Coffee; Skye Coffee Co.

Exploration score; 9/10 (saw the ocean, drank tinto de veranos by said ocean.

Next up was Lyon. Marshy & I were up early so we went for a walk to get coffee. On the way back we saw some red pandas, which was obviously excellent. This venue was very cool, and was my first opportunity to see the full stage set up. This was also my first day riding a Lime Scooter, and I was immediately hooked. What an excellent idea. Great day.

Lyon

Venue; Transbordeur

Coffee; La Boîte À Café

Exploration score; 8/10. Extra points here for scoots and pandas.

After Lyon we travelled to Pratteln, Switzerland for the next show. Switzerland is a pretty strange country for shows, but this one was pretty decent. I got some breakfast and then played Marshy’s guitar for a bit while the important crew members set the stage up. Then we took a trip in to Basel and had a snoop around. Pretty nice town, but Switzerland is v expensive so we ran back to the venue for some catering and a v lively show. Someone threw some money at CJ, which is pretty wild, and there was a window which put me on eye level with Jesse on his big riser. Lovely.

Pratteln

Venue; Z7

Coffee; Frühling

Exploration score; 6/10.

After Switzerland we went to Munich. I love Munich. I got up early, again, and played Sean’s guitar this time, and just as badly as normal. Jesse, CJ & I jumped on some Limes and headed into the city - we found the best coffee, had some real great beers with Boris on our way back, and then upset the host guy at the beerhaus we went to after the show because we kept spilling drinks. Ignorant tourists. The show was ace though, which is the main thing. Munich loses points for the asshole in the suit who kept crowdsurfing, covered in his own vomit, but that’s not enough to negate an otherwise excellent day.

Munich

Venue; Backstage

Coffee; Man Vs Machine 

Exploration score; 9/10

After Munich we hit up Milan, for a day of eating, ruined by a show which started at 11pm. That’s actually way mean. It was fine. We got a van into the city, drank some fancy beer that Jesse was very excited about, then had 2 dinners and an ice cream before heading back to the venue for a show. Considering it was in some weird marquee thing, it was actually pretty good. After the show, Marsh and Twan made an insane charcuterie board in the bus at 4am and we all pigged out. Excellent.

Milan

Venue; Circolo Magnolia

Coffee; N/A (Had an affrogato at Eataly though)

Exploration score; 3/10

The final stop on this blog was Slovenia, in the pleasingly named Ljubljana. The venue was this insane, really modern space, which was ace. We weren’t allowed to play any change over music, which was odd, but there you go. We had an explore of the city, which is really very nice, and found a great little coffee spot. The show was cool, there weren’t thousands of people, but the people there were pretty crazy, and overall the vibe was good. 

Ljubljana 

Venue; Kino Siska

Coffee; Tozd

Exploration score; 8/10

That’s all for this blog folks. Next time we’ll be heading from Slovenia through Eastern Europe and back into Germany. ✌🏻