Future of the Left postpone UK tour

I was really looking forward to the Amersham Arms gig next Thursday.

Anyone know how it works with refunds for such things?

realising on the day your tour starts you need to record?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A

Don't particularly care about FOTL but it always disgusts me when bands pull this particularly rotten cliche from the box.

If it's against everything you stand for, your principals are particularly flimsy because you wouldn't do it otherwise now, would you?

... two weeks back in Cambridge (even though they were on pretty decent form) this isn't a huge shocker. If you can't fill a medium-small venue with tickets at £6 then you really have no business heading out on a national tour. That said, making the business decision, rather than the decision to follow through on its commitment to (what must be a precariously small) fan base is very poor form on their part. If you commit to a tour then it's on your head if you don't manage to make it a commercial success.

I wouldn't judge the UK music scene on Cambridge. Cambridge is a hideously depressing place, musically speaking, at the minute. When gigging in Ipswich is more fun than gigging in Cambridge, you know you're in trouble. Maybe Cambridge should just give up.

seem to share your view of ipswich
www.myspace.com/sleepercell346

credit crunch!

Ipswich is good fun to play these days. So's Norwich. To be honest, by comparison, I'm not really sure if it's worth trying to make anything cool happen in Cambridge at the minute, no one seems particularly up for it - and it makes me genuinely sad to say so. But any alleged "city" where only 44 people go to see A Band Of Genuine 100% Total Total Heroes on a Friday night (because they were doing what, exactly? washing their mullets? fucking a chimp?) is seriously diseased and should be stamped off the planet.

I'll see them next year though.

This is andy/falco/fucker from the band.

Some salient points -

1 - I personally had nothing to do with the tour being pulled, and I'm intensely fucking upset that it has been.
2 - anybody inferring that this means that we have little respect for our 'fans' needs a full shot of reality. Please refer to our general conduct and the huge respect with which we treat everybody at our shows unless their behaviour dictates otherwise.
3 - Nasty fest was really good fun, and any problems retrospectively identified are purely in the minds of those to whom they have just occurred.
4 - Turnouts on the tour have been great. Cambridge was a particular low, partly because of a stagetime of quarter past midnight and partly, well, because it was Cambridge.

I can only apologise and feel embarrassed.

falco

He was right!

Was gutted when I heard that FOTL were not going to be playing in Birmingham last night, but the night was still great, excellent performances from the 3 other bands on the bill,
Cromwells League, Sabotage Left and Untitled Musical Project. And the dj did actually play a FOTL track so they sort of did play!

Excellent to hear from falco - I don't think the band's respect for the fans was ever in doubt: I was at the Cambridge gig too (with bjones, in fact) and despite the crowd the band played a blinding set which went on far past the stage time and was really just fucking good fun for everyone who did show up.

That said, the turnout at Cambridge gigs has been shocking in the last year or so, and I suppose that's reflected in the death of the Barfly (as well as it being a less-than-ideal venue in itself). The Islands tour was even worse attended than FotL, which was such a shame - and even BSP were nowhere near filling the Junction one on their most recent date.

That said, the Portland is fucking splendid. I saw Volcano! there last Sunday, and whatever sized crowd you have, a gig just seems to work there.

... If anybody is significantly out of pocket in terms of booking fees etc. then we'll do our level best to reimburse through the medium of merchandise. There's little we can do in terms of train fares, only show sincere regret and hope that the next show, new material and all, makes the inconvenience and disappointment tolerable.

but it's the least I can do. The timing was utterly ridiculous and I can understand people being pissed off - hell, I'm fucking pissed off. Writing is going incredibly well -by this rate we should be finished the record by March, hopefully for a release in June.

The key word in that sentence, however, is 'should'.

Wow, you really didn't manage to read what I wrote at all. If you'd bothered you'd have realised that I had no criticism to make of the band with relation to their performance (they were excellent from the perspective of someone who has only the time to attend one show in a tour rather than all of them). I simply said that based on that, admittedly limited, sample that it was surprising that so few people would turn up for a £6 gig with such a quality headliner but that irrespective they owe an obligation to those who have bought tickets to play their gigs regardless of whether they are a financial success or not.

Get a grip?