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Party Cannon Offer a Gritty, Humorous, and Candid Look at Life on the Road [Tour Diary]

This tour diary offers a gritty, humorous, and candid behind-the-scenes look at life on the road with Party Cannon as they recover from a whirlwind UK tour.

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Party Cannon
Party Cannon

This tour diary offers a gritty, humorous, and candid behind-the-scenes look at life on the road with Party Cannon as they recover from a whirlwind 2024 tour across the UK. From the early-morning departures and gruelling drives to the wild antics at each show, this diary captures the ups and downs of a musician’s life on tour with vivid details and plenty of laughs.

Each day takes readers to a different city and venue, describing the unique settings, outrageous crowd interactions, and memorable backstage moments that define the Party Cannon experience. The band’s camaraderie and relentless drive shine through the chaotic and sometimes absurd encounters, making this diary a lively read for music fans and anyone curious about the rock-and-roll lifestyle.

Join Party Cannon as they navigate packed gigs, dive into unforgettable crowd antics, and celebrate the camaraderie and chaos that come with the heavy metal tour scene. Now, without any further delay, and completely in the words of Party Cannon, we give you their 2024 Tour Diary!

Day 1: September 19 – The Globe, Cardiff

After a well-earned two hours of sleep, I got out of bed at 3am and kissed my girlfriend, two cats and glorious ex-racing greyhound goodbye, jumping in the van we dubbed “The Brothership” and starting the Inverkeithing > Dunfermline > Motherwell > Dumfries > Cardiff journey for our 3pm load-in. No matter how well you prepare for a tour, you always leave at 3am when you live in Fife. I picked up our guitarist Craig in Dunfermline, he let me know he hadn’t slept as he spent the night watching the final episode of Grand Tour and accidentally ordering three kebabs to go with it. We met up with our vocalist Daryl and creative director Bailey outside our drummer Martin’s house. We took turns lying on the pavement and using my foam back roller while waiting for Martin to jump out his house. It was still 90 minutes until the next stop, so we kept ourselves awake in the van by coming up with terrible band names – Shit Gripper was a good suggestion, followed by Denying The Allegations. It was 7am by the time we got Tony, our fill-in guitarist’s place in Dumfries – he was still in his dressing gown and slippers, well rested and eating a roll with square sausage. It was his turn to drive the van. I was unconscious in the passenger seat and drooling everywhere the moment he sat in the driver’s seat. I must have slept for 6 hours in that seat. I knew we had to be in England when I woke up because no one at the service station could understand my brutal east coast accent. It was our first time at The Globe and it turned out to be a really cool venue with a big mezzanine area that looks onto the stage and a green room in a separate office building next door. This was also our first time meeting the Pintglass guys who, at the time of writing this, we get along with pretty well. The venue is packed from doors and people are immediately queuing to buy merch from all the bands, including a 13 year old girl with her own homemade Party Cannon backpatch whose steaming mum tells us this is her first gig. The girl tells us a very racist joke, and we’re all not sure where to look. We sign her CD. Street Soldier and Pintglass kick the fuck of Cardiff, and the crowd is ready to get dumb by the time we’re on. Circle pits, crowd surfing, spin kicks and pushups – Cardiff knew what was up. I head to the merch desk to try and not get sweat on the crowd and send Tony on an important mission to bag up the rider in the green room so we can take it in the van. Our hotel has a rainfall shower, life is good.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 1

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 1

Day 2: September 20 – The Junction, Plymouth

I make plans to wake up early and checkout Cardiff castle as it is literally around the corner from our hotel, my phone tells me my alarm went off over an hour ago and that I have definitely not achieved one of those things. I gentle shake Bailey awake who is nestled against me on the sofa bed so we can round up the boys, Martin has been awake for hours and logged into his work laptop – he’s European, they’re just like that. We take a team walk to the castle and get the usual tourist photo, stopping for coffee and to raid Forbidden Planet on the way back to the van. It’s a short two hour drive to Plymouth which is the great thing about touring the UK, all the drives are reasonably short. Only a year ago we were setting off on a 20 hour drive between venues in America that required traversing every weather condition known to man. This is our first time in Plymouth and straight away I knew I’d be binning my underwear after the set from the moisture – it was going to be sweaty. The venue is a cosy sized pub and the gig is completely sold out, the ticket count I was given sounds like double the capacity of the place. “Anything more than this becomes unsafe”. Two notable highlights from this gig; we saw Scotty from Street Soldier pull out a blender he brought on tour with him in the green room which I respect greatly, and, during the final song of our set, I found a squeezee bottle of Mayonnaise on the PA speaker. I don’t know how it got there so I hand it to someone in the audience while we’re playing – it ends as well as you can imagine. After the set we drive to Travelodge to that’s on route to Milton Keynes and the lady behind the desk greets us by saying to me “you’ve all stayed here before, I recognise your deep voice”, and she was right, we had stayed there before – in 2022 while on tour with GWAR.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 2

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 2

Day 3 – September 21 – The Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes

I open the curtains in the room I was sharing with Craig and Martin and spot Bailey petting some sheep at the side of the carpark and Daryl drawing something on a car that’s parked near our van. It turns out Street Soldier were staying in the same hotel as us so of course we had to draw a massive, veiny, spunking cock on their car window. If you haven’t been to The Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes before, the venue is fucking awesome, it’s like it’s been built for the sole purpose of harbouring goths – lots of black architecture and gargoyles everywhere, stained glass windows with Lemmy dressed like Jesus, a heavy metal jukebox, beer gardens with black canopies and a decent sized venue in the back room. We arrive a few hours early for load-in and decide to go our separate ways until the sound engineer arrives, it hasn’t even been three full days yet and we’re sick of each other’s shit already. Martin and Bailey go to Asda to pick up further art supplies for the set whereas Craig and Tony Google what landmarks are nearby and can only find “concrete cows”. Daryl goes upstairs to the green room to drink fancy tea and I decide to also stay behind so I can set up merch and take up all the space before Pintglass and Street Solider arrive. I think we definitely bring too much merch on tour, when we toured Europe with Cognitive their guitarist / manager Rob told me we bring Gojira levels of merch’. I’ll stop bringing so much merch when people stop buying things like caps and joggers (please don’t stop buying these things). Tony returns and shows me a surreal video of Craig milking a concrete cow and then a picture of himself riding said cow like a horse. “Yeah you’re not wrong that is really weird” I say to Tony, and the barman chimes in with “I’ve ridden my fair share of cows”. We’ve played this venue a couple of times now, however tonight is exceptionally feral. I think we must have broken the venue’s crowd surf record during our set, or at least the air moisture record because fuck me was it hot in there. As a special treat for the crowd tonight, we have a second skull man to jump on stage and accompany Bailey for double the nonsense. A member of staff mentioned their husband is a huge fan of the band and is coming along tonight after a lengthy stint away on a deployed working post. They jump on stage, splitting their denim shorts and proceeding to stuff a glow stick up their arse. It was a good night in Milton Keynes.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 3

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 3

Day 4: September 22 – Thekla, Bristol

“Did you see all the pigs? They were everywhere earlier” Bailey asks me as we’re walking out our hotel and into the service station. “Pigs? Were they at the side of the services? Did you pet any?” – turns out he meant police. It’s Daryl’s turn to drive today so I use the opportunity to sit in the back cabin of the van for change – turns out I get horrifically travel sick if I don’t sit in the front. We pull up to the venue in Bristol and it turns out to be an actual literal boat that’s been permanently docked. Despite the show advance stating the venue was a boat several times, my brain chose not to acknowledge it and instead be completely surprised when the venue turned out to be a boat (despite being explicitly stated many times to me beforehand). The place is legitimately cool as fuck, the venue area is below sea level and there’s a balcony area that looks down onto the stage and the whole place is like a nautical labyrinth, I spend most of the day completely lost trying to find my way to the toilet. Today is a special day though, not only are we playing on a boat for the first time, but good friend and long time Party Cannon super fan Josh is joining us to help out with merch. Who knew having a merch person on tour would be so useful. Street Soldier and Pintglass arrive not long after Josh and of course we immediately all talk about filling the poop deck with sea men. It really is tour package made in heaven. The show rep informs us that it’s due to be a packed night and politely requests we do not ask the crowd to run side to side during our set as, previously mentioned, it is a literal actual boat we’re on and that will cause the gangway to come off the dock. He also mentioned that you can feel the boat rocking back and forth and that is all I can think about for the rest of the night. The venue’s green room is located directly behind the stage which means we’re able to make the most rock star entrance ever and appear on stage out of complete darkness, none of us care how cheesy it is and embrace the vanity. This is definitely one of the most active crowds of the tour with many people opting to bring their own inflatable to the gig, I can spot a menagerie of rubber animals flying around the pit alongside multiple inflatable cocks and giant donuts. Josh just about cripples a teenage girl who has chosen the wrong spot to stand in as he stage dives. After the set we head to The Gryphon to catch up with John the owner who has booked us many times in the past, he is the nicest man in Bristol and The Gryphon is one of the coolest metal bars in the UK. We have two triple rooms and a single room booked at our hotel that night, I commandeer the single room because I wrote most the songs so get to just do that. The single room turns out to a full four person room for some reason.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 4

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 4

Day 5: September 23 – The Garage, London

The biggest day of any tour, the London date. While playing London has always been great for us, this one is particularly surreal as we’re headlining the main room of The Garage, easily our biggest headline venue to date – last time I was there was in 2010 to see Firewind. We’re all intimidated by the size of the room as the only time we’ve played anything this size is as part of a festival, and up until a couple of years ago we were pretty content playing punk squats and cupboard sized venues. I say it all the time; if I turn up to a venue and there’s a monitor on the stage I consider it a bonus, so to be playing The Garage is luxury and means something in the universe has gone terribly wrong for a band like us to be allowed in the building. After loading in and sound checking, I get a message from our PR agent Jazmin to say her and our mutual long term friend Zoe are outside the back of the venue so we head out to say hi to them. Daryl is holding a piping hot plastic cup of herbal tea and for reasons unknown, I become overwhelmed with the need for chaos and spike it out his hand, covering him in scalding fluid and ultimately ruining his day. I also had thrown a packet of baby wipes at him that smashed him in the testicles earlier that morning. This the first day of the tour we have press interviews lined up, being the ego-maniac I am I opt to do all the interviews. After our press slot, I take a quick walk out front to see the queue of people waiting to get into the venue and to take a picture of Party Cannon in big letters on the marquee to send to my mum. Last time we headlined a gig in London someone had to get rushed to hospital after pouring two bottles of hot sauce into their eyes and we nearly got blacklisted for covering the entire venue in confetti, so I’m taking this opportunity to enjoy the contrast in events. It was great to see a lot of our old friends and original supporters of the band out in the crowd so it was a busy night catching up with people. Our booking agent Ste is even there, marking the second time I’ve ever met him in person. While setting up for our set we can hear a big commotion up by Pintglass’ merch desk – Ben is on top of their table auctioning off one of Kim’s broken cymbals and people are furiously bidding. The cymbal eventually went for over £200! The set is wild, people from the front row are crowd surfed all the way to the bar at the back of the venue and at one point a large portion of the crowd start doing the macarena, I’m not entirely sure why. What was particularly cool about this gig was the amount of young people in the audience, a lot of them came up to us after the set and said this was their first metal gig ever – what a way to experience live music for the first time. I assured them their next metal gig would probably feature less inflatable dolphins but will probably have better music. I go up to the merch desk to help Josh pack up merchandise, Laurie from Street Soldier is there and he looks me in the eyes and says “A blowjob so sloppy, you have to wipe your ass afterwards”. “Daryl asked you say this to me, didn’t he”, I ask, “he sure did”.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 5

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 5

Day 6: September 24 – Rebellion, Manchester

We stayed the night at our friend Chris’ house in Rugby, Daryl is assigned to breakfast duty and enthusiastically cooks everyone up bacon and eggs. I overestimated how much everyone was going to eat and bought way too many rolls, so as a parting thank you gift to Chris, I leave him with 12 buttered rolls that have short expiry dates. We were all excited for Manchester to begin with as it is one of the best cities in the UK for heavy music, but we were all surprised to find out there had been a last minute surge in ticket sales for what was already going to be a busy night and that the night is now sold out – sell out number 2 of the tour! We had played Rebellion plenty of times before on various fests but this is the first time it has been sold out. The only time I’ve seen Rebellion sold out was when I saw Waking The Cadaver play there in 2019 and I ended up being crowd surfed upside down with my legs in the air. As expected for Manchester, the crowd is absolutely feral for all three bands – there are very few points in the night where there isn’t someone flying off stage and being crowd surfed. At one point the crowd organise themselves into a limbo competition, which is a first for a Party Cannon set. Manchester Metal Legend Rory Lees is spotted throughout the night in full mankini getup absolutely moshing out fools in the pit. I come off stage and find out my Wormhole cap is missing from the side stage area and I am far more upset by this than I would have expected, almost enough to completely ruin the night.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 6

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 6

Day 7: September 25 – The Lubber Fiend, Newcastle

Fun fact about Newcastle; our first ever Party Cannon gig was in Newcastle at a place called The Northumberland Arms way back in 2010 – we played to around 7 people and Craig’s amp blew up before the last song so he watched us play from the bar. Tonight is set to be a change of pace to that gig however as it actually sold out way in advance of the tour, meaning tonight is sold out date number 3 of the tour. If only our original drummer was around to see this, he’s not dead or anything I just don’t talk to him (he is an arsehole). It was only a short drive from Manchester to Newcastle, however it may have been the most caffeinated run of the tour yet as we were all awake until 4am listening to Craig sing David Bowie songs. The venue has a proper punk squat vibe that we love, everything is tagged with graffiti and drawings of skulls and the venue area is up a treacherously winding set of narrow stairs. After load-in me and Craig decide to head to a nearby barber and get our beards trimmed. I know this seems like an oddly specific thing to do, but there was meant to be a barber coming to the Manchester gig and giving us all haircuts so I decided not to shave before the tour – they did not make it in the end so I’ve been kicking about with this terrible beard for no reason. It’s time for us to play, the side stage area is small so we’re packed in tightly together while our intro sample plays. It’s at this point Daryl realises our inflatables aren’t on stage and exclaims “this is a disaster” and crawls across the stage and into the green room area to find the two Bens from Pintglass punching the fuck out of our dolphin. The set is more wild than we could have expected, it’s actually been close to 10 years since we last played Newcastle so wasn’t sure how we’d go down – in fact the last time we played there was as a last minute replacement for Destroyer 666 at a festival. Who the fuck knows why. While unloading the van at our hotel Daryl makes the bold claim that he believes he could break the world record for most semen produces in one go, Bailey queries how much the record is currently and I assure him it’s definitely less than a pint.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 7

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 7

Day 8: September 26 – The Flapper, Birmingham

If you’re reading this tour diary and wondering why the route is now zigzagging all over the place, you have Cannibal Corpse to blame for that as they decided to announce a bunch of UK dates right as we confirmed our original routing. After discovering I have no underwear left and that my stage clothes will now literally standup by themselves unaided, I decided today was the day to do some laundry. I wake up early and take a 20 minute walk to a community laundromat that’s located in a studenty area which means I’m definitely able to get fancy coffee while I’m waiting on my clothes. I message the rest of the guys to assure them I wasn’t about to Rob Wharton the tour and my laundry will be done soon (on our Euro tour last May Rob spent over an hour doing laundry in Eindhoven which meant we didn’t have time to go to a war museum – which was his idea to visit in the first place). The van picks me up and everyone starts chanting “Rob! Rob! Rob!” as I get in. We love Rob and the Cognitive guys really. The weather is exceptionally bad today and everything around The Flapper is absolutely flooded, but that doesn’t stop the gig selling out – sold out gig 4 of the run! After load-in I treat Bailey to a game of pool in the upstairs bar area of the venue, and by “treat” I mean he completely tanks me as not only is he incredible at pool, I am abysmal. This may have been the wildest crowd of the tour so far, it’s almost impossible for me to do backing vocals as there’s only few moments where there isn’t someone being thrown onto the stage and into my mic stand. The crowd take every prompt we throw out very seriously; the circle pit engulfs the entire room, people are crowd surfed against the ceiling while riding the inflatable dolphin, the whole venue is doing push-ups. While we’re loading the van after the set, one of the venue staff brings out a box of bagged cider that is due to go out of date and hands it to Craig. It’s about a 4 hour drive to Tony’s house in Dumfries where we plan to stay that night, however I’m sure it felt like 20 minutes to Craig after guzzling down that cider sack.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 8

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 8

Day 9: September 27 – The Cathouse, Glasgow

It’s a special one for us tonight, we’re playing the only Scottish gig of this run and it’s our adoptive hometown of Glasgow, and not only that, it’s at The Cathouse and completely sold out – sell out 5 of the tour! Selling out The Cathouse is surreal and a little daunting as it’s like the goth mecca for Scotland, everyone has seen their favourite band play there at some point and everyone has a Cathouse club night story to share – our drummer Martin even met his wife in there over 10 years ago. Growing up, I’d seen bands like Suffocation, Nile, Hate Eternal, Dying Fetus, Origin and more in The Cathouse. The last time we played there was in 2019, supporting Cattle Decapitation, and it was disastrous for us, Martin’s kick trigger didn’t work for the entire set and on top of that we had no merch to sell as we had accidentally left it all in Korea while on tour in Asia the week before, so to be now playing a sold out headline gig was a big deal for us and a bit of a redemption in a way. I considered this such a big deal that I even invited my parents along, this would be their first time seeing Party Cannon and I strategically invited them to this one in case it’s nothing but a down swing from here for us. We make sure to get into Glasgow exceptionally early as we need to make several stops in and around the city – first one being Martin’s house so that I can pick up two boxes of merch I ordered specifically for this gig. Load-in at The Cathouse is supersmooth as they have their own crew on hand to help and we’re greeted by our long time friend, the infamous Jonny Almond of Bromotions fame – he now works for Triple G and is putting on the gig tonight. Jonny has brought his son along to watch soundcheck as he is a big fan of the band for some reason. It’s close to doors and the queue for tonight is filling Union Street, our friend and videographer Calum McMillan is documenting the night and asks people in the street what their favourite thing about Party Cannon is – “the inflatable cocks”, “Chris is good at drums”, “I don’t like them I think they’re shit” are some of the top answers. I am not good at drums which is why I play bass. I spend most of Street Soldier and Pintglass’ set watching them from the lighting desk and catching up with lots of old friends and meeting new fans at the merch desk. Thankfully Bailey had drafted in his friend Anna to cover merch tonight so we had time to see everyone. My girlfriend Klaudia arrives with my parents and I present her with gifts I picked up on the road – a wedge of goat cheese and a Nightmare Before Christmas purse from a comic shop in Manchester. This could not have been a better “hometown” set, people are being crowd surfed from the moment we hit play on the intro sample and the energy in the room is absolutely feral. I believe we may have been the first band to get a circle pit from the venue area, through the bar / merch room and back into the venue. We’re all truly grateful for the response we received, it’s mad that people seem to care about the band 14 years into our “career”, and we’re just as grateful to be home in our own beds that night. My dog went absolutely fucking nuts when I got home and I had to walk her for 40 minutes before she calmed down. Both cats did not seem to notice I was back.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 9

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 9

Day 10: September 28 – The Key Club, Leeds

The final day of the tour, and sell out number 6 of this run! The last time we were at The Key Club was while we were on tour with GWAR in 2022, there are still blood and alien goo stains on the walls and in the backstage area. As it’s the last day, we all talk about how we’re going to integrate back into normal life and what questions our co-workers will ask us on Monday. As a nice end-of-tour treat, we all pool our buyout money and get Japanese food from a nice restaurant nearby. It is also Bailey’s birthday today, so I arranged for Daryl to pick up a cake for him in secret. Leeds has always been a favourite city of ours to play as it is pretty much the home of UK grindcore and powerviolence, and the crowds have always been mental. Tonight is no different, one song in and we have people hanging from the lighting rig doing pullups. Laurie from Street Soldier puts on a spare skull mask and brings out the birthday cake for Bailey on stage. Bailey blows out the candles and offers some cake to the audience, it is demolished in seconds and his skull mask and the rest of the band are splattered with chocolate. We end the night by getting Street Soldier and Pintglass up during “Duct Taped To A Flag Pole” and causing chaos. It’s the perfect IQ-lowering end to the perfect IQ-lowering tour.

Party Cannon - 2024 Tour Diary - Day 10

Party Cannon – 2024 Tour Diary – Day 10

Party Cannon ‘Injuries are Inevitable’ album artwork

Party Cannon ‘Injuries are Inevitable’ album artwork

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