Artists Discuss Touring Highlights of 2015
We asked a bunch of artists including Claptone, Set Mo, City Calm Down, GL, Tuff Sherm, Porsches, Klue and more, to share their touring highlights of 2015.
Another year is almost gone, which means another year of awesome tours and festivals has taken place. We decided to ask a bunch of artists including CLAPTONE, SET MO, CITY CALM DOWN, GL, TUFF SHERM, PORSCHES, KLUE and more, to share their touring highlights of 2015.
"Earlier this year I played a festival in Croatia - a fairly cosy one called Lighthouse Festival. It was organised by people back home so the vibe was quite familiar. The line up is predominately techno & house, so when I played the last slot of the big stage one evening, I could sense they'd heard enough 4 by 4 kick drums for the day and wanted to let loose. The atmosphere was incredible and I had so much fun playing to such a pumped crowd, that experience will forever be in my head. I like to sweep through lots of genres when I DJ to keep the crowds on edge, it also makes performing so much more fun for me!"
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GWENNO
"Touring in general was absolutely wonderful during 2015. We started by supporting Gruff Rhys on his UK tour in February, that was a huge deal for me, to get to play in front of the brilliant audience that Gruff has, and to play the rest of the UK for the first time. That lead to meeting Jeff Barrett from Heavenly Recordings and so it opened up a massive door, it lead to supporting Stealing Sheep - with their intricate arrangements and incredibly catchy pop songs, and to playing a whole load of festivals over the summer.
I was first on at Greenman, a slot that I wasn't familiar with as I'd never attended the festival before but the tent was completely packed! Granted, I was the only act playing at the time, but still, there were loads of people there and they were fantastic! Port Eliot was another highlight, I hadn't played a gig in Cornwall for way over a decade and it was just a real honour to be able to sing in Cornish in Cornwall, and I really can't wait to go back. We finished the year touring with H. Hawkline around the UK. Huw and his band were ace every night and it really highlighted to me how great the album 'In The Pink of Condition' is. So, all in all, a wonderful year of gigging, and one that I'm sure I'll remember forever."
"Our most delicious tour memory was whilst on the long drive to Adelaide with Roland Tings for a Chet Faker support show. We had a picnic in Bordertown consisting of handmade noodle salad pre-prepared by RT himself, despite having (most of) our fresh food confiscated at the border by Quarantine."
"The last night of touring with Jungle at the start of this year was a bit of highlight for myself and the band. It was literally the first run of shows we’d ever done - serious in at the deep-end shit… But we got through it, and for whatever reason the crowd in Norwich that night was really up for it, and afterwards I think we all had this massive euphoric feeling of - “Damn, we actually just pulled that off!", and from that point on Clarence Clarity has felt like something that actually exists in the real world. Which is rare (and nice) these days."
KLUE (also in TRUE VIBENATION)
"A definite highlight for me this year was touring Africa with True Vibenation. It was a total spin out to be playing festivals on the other side of the world and seeing crowds singing along to our songs. So surreal. My Klue live set at Subsonic Music festival was a favourite for me too. It was the first time doing it with a horn section, most of the show I'd never played live and I knew there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but nothing did. I quite like that sense of danger! The energy of the crowd was amazing too. Vibes galore!"
"It was definitely on the Tkay Maidza national tour. It was the last show and she asked us to jump on stage with her for the final track. I thought it would be a great moment to wear one of her stage outfits so I could come out looking like Tkay. Willow Beats and the rest of the crew all joined in (luckily), so like 6 of us jumped on stage all individually dressed up as Tkays. Also, I just celebrated my birthday by playing a gig with legends Booka Shade and Tensnake which was stupidly fun."
"We've been lucky enough to have had an amazing year touring. We got to play our first shows over in the USA and also did two national tours which have both been awesome. The highlight though would have to be playing Splendour In The Grass, playing to that many people was truly special and it was super fun to do something a little different with the classic house set we played."
"Our national tour in October was a real highlight. But it's pretty hard to pick one moment to be honest. The audiences in each city were amazing in the way they responded to a set dominated by unreleased material."
TUFF TERM (aka DRO CAREY)
"The tour for the Dern Work EP this year was fairly small when it came to the number of dates, however the shows were actually all really amazing experiences, all ranking amongst my favourite sets I've played. The best of them was Sydney, where an open-minded and highly energetic crowd came by the Sly Fox for a few hours of what ended up being very far-reaching and heavy techno. It's super rewarding when a crowd is into it and you keep pushing the envelope with stranger and stranger selections."
Compiled by Tony Kingston
Top photo via Claptone's Facebook
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