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Goodbye to a beautiful soul

Goodbye to a beautiful soul... Until we meet again

Hi everyone.

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to one of our most loyal fans of all time. After coming to almost every Cape Town (and surrounding areas) show we’ve ever played, nearly always on her trusty bicycle, Marie Jansen was tragically taken from us all to soon this morning after a brief battle with cancer.

Marie was one of the purest, happiest and most beautiful souls we have ever known, and her absence at shows will be felt by us, as well as by everyone else, who befriended her over the many years. We will always remember the sparkle in her eyes and the excitement and enthusiasm in her voice when it came to music and cycling.

Marie, may you rest in peace after a life lived to the fullest.

You will be remembered x

—–

I’ll be honest, not much has happened since we last spoke.

The band have put in a couple of rehearsals to just to “sharpen the saw”, as Kahn so often likes to say (Personally, I can tell you from years of experience that more-often-than-not it’s HIS saw that needs the most sharpening. 😜)

We play our first official show of the year this week Saturday in Durban at the Lovers & Friends concert.

Looking forward to it! And any excuse to go to the sea, is just fine by me. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go for a run on the promenade and jump into the ocean.

After that I see that the shows are rolling in strong and fast so keep your eye on our gig guide and book your tickets!

Load Shedding, Wifi and Q & A

Load Shedding, Wifi and Q&A

In this episode, Paul talks about what it’s like living in South Africa when it’s load shedding season (which is pretty much all the time now) 🙂

He also answers some of your questions from Facebook.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year Everyone!

We all hope that this year will be full of good things for all of you. May we all just take a step back and remember that we are tiny beings living on a tiny planet and that if you zoom out into space for just a few seconds and have a look at Earth from up there, you easily realize that many things are really simply just not worth the drama we put ourselves through.

We’ve had a good break but are ready to get back into the saddle come February, so keep you eye on our website and social medias so you don’t miss out on tickets!

We’re also ready to hit the studio again to begin work on something new that we have up our sleeves for you, which is going to be AWESOME.

And that’s all the news so far, really, we’ll see you all soon at a show.

Hello 2020

Hello 2020

Welcome to a new decade! Paul chats about having time of in January and what we can expect for the new year.

Glen’s Last blog for the year

Last blog for 2019

Load shedding has its up sides. For one I can enjoy this beautiful, post-rain scenery whilst sipping on a whiskey and typing this blog. Had there been electricity I’d probably be typing this in front of the TV while simultaneously trying to fathom the events that lead to WWII and eat my spaghetti without biting a hole in my right cheek. (Said WWII events, can I just say, were INSANE.) It’s hard to imagine something that happened so recently ever happening again, but let’s be honest, we’ve been killing each other over land since the beginning of time, and still are. Here’s hoping that a long overdue Alien invasion finally brings the people of Earth together for once.

But enough about that, for now it’s mid-December 2019 and almost every band and artist in SA is gearing up for some or other kind of Summer Tour. For us – it’s our annual SUMMERTONES Tour, which hits Durban next week, pauses for Christmas, and then continues in the Cape post-Christmas. There are only 6 shows so be sure to book your tickets NOW!

For all the DATES click HERE

So this will be my final blog entry until 2020 so I just want to, on behalf of the band, thank each and every one of you for your continued support and we can’t wait to get back at it next year – we’ve got some cool shit up our sleeves, so keep your calenders open!

Until then,
Much Love
Glen.

Last week of November

Last week of November, 2019.

Hello to you – the person reading this. Thanks for taking the time.

If I recall correctly the last newsletter I wrote was just before we were about to leave for our annual UK/EU tour. Well, the good news is that we made it! We survived the month and are now back at home! The tour started in London and moved swiftly along through Brighton, Liverpool, and Birmingham, before we jumped aboard the trusty P&O Ferry and landed ourselves in France, where we hit the ground running through Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands.

Thank you to all of you that came out to the shows, and to those of you who made our trip a little bit easier in any way, we thank you too. We had a lot of laughs while we spent many, many hours in the van zig-zagging across the continent, we even managed to watch the World Cup Rugby Final in our van on one of those trips, via the wonders of today’s technologies. I fondly
remember our first international tours where you were lucky if you got to make one phone call a week from a ticky-box somewhere in whichever city you found yourself in. These days with Wi-fi, Maps on our smart phones, WhatApp, and pre-loaded sim cards touring life is a lot easier, but also not like it used to be. But we love it regardless, and will continue to do it as long as this poor planet allows us to.

One thing that I loved about touring back then (when we each had to make our tiny per diem of 5 pounds a day last) and that I continue to love today is SUBWAY! Spotting a Subway on tour is something that makes me so happy. When people ask me what I miss the most about travel when I’m home – the answer is Subway – but I’ll generally tell them something else that they probably want to hear. When they ask me to tell them about cool tourist sites we visited, I kindy oblige with tales of 5000 year -old temples, and giant skyscraping cathedrals, but really in the back of my head I’m really just thinking of that “Veggie Delite 6” I grabbed after sound check in Birmingham. I am a sandwich man.

Speaking of exploring the places we go to, Neil is an avid ‘Geo-Chache-r’. I feel that he may be the only band member in South Africa who actually goes out and finds these things. And he has found A LOT of them. Often Rob and I will join him on the hunt, and we have seen so many cool places and things on this tour, and on previous tours, that we wouldn’t have ever even known about, had it not being for ‘Geo-Caching’. If you don’t know what it is, then download the app – it’s very much worth it. If you think that you may perhaps be a legit challenger to Neil, please let us know, and we can compare numbers (You’ll lose).

So now we only have a few more shows left for this year. This weekend we bring ‘The Choraltones” to Monte Casino, which will be a very special show featuring us, a choir, some strings, and guest artists. If you are reading this and you haven’t bought your tickets yet…you know what to do.

Then in December we tour a little up and down the coast, before taking a little break in January to regroup, recover, and think up a plan for 2020 that will make it even more awesome than this year was!

Hope to see you on the road.
Glenn.

Back in the USSR (well, Joburg…)

Back in the USSR (well, Joburg...)

Hello to all you beautiful people!

We have returned to the sunny shores of South Africa after spending the last 4 weeks or so traipsing around the UK and Europe where it got pretty chilly. Mostly it was just jacket and/or scarf kind of weather, but towards the end it started getting very cold and it was double-sock weather. You can prepare for the cold, but it’s the rain and damp weather that you’re not ready for. You can dress as warm as you like, but when your hoodie and shoes are damp then you start getting miserable.

(And it was weird talking to folk back home and hearing about how it was over 36° and they’re all sleeping with fans on and the windows open, while we were shivering with jackets and hoodies on in beds!)

We had such an amazing time in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Malta, and it was so good to see all our friends and fans again but it’s always great to return home.

If you go browse our Facebook and Instagram pages, you’ll see daily tour diaries that our trusty cameraman Jerome put together while we were on the road. It’s a great snapshot of life on the road and gives a little bit of insight into what goes on behind-the-scenes… which is mostly just us sleeping or joking around.

 
 

 

Now that we’re home, we’re putting the final touches to our CHORTALTONES shows at Teatro in Montecasino, which happens in ONE WEEK! (eek!)

CHORTALTONES is a production we’re doing alongside the National Youth Choir and a small orchestra section. So you’ll hear all (or most, anyway!) of your favourite Parlotones song performed alongside an amazing youth choir and a beautiful string section, bringing a whole element to the songs you know and love. 

There will also be performances and co-labs with Majozi and Bard, so get ready for an epic show.

Friday 29th is almost sold out, so if you hurry you might be able to get some seats, but for you slowpokes we’ve added a matinee show on Saturday the 30th. Of course, you may enjoy the Friday night so much that you’ll want to get a ticket for Saturday afternoon as well. 

Hope to see you all soon!

Ciao,

Paul, Kahn, Glen, Neil, Rob, Josh, Gregg, AK, Mr. Beck, Ash, Chad, Gwen, Jo & Kayleigh our merch ladies … etc. etc. etc.

aka the whole Parlotones gang

(as they say, it takes a village to look after a band…)

Tour Diary

Glen's Tour Diary. 26 October.

So here we are in Zurich. I think. Got a beautiful view of the little town we’re staying/playing in and surrounding countryside from the hotel room I’m sharing with Paul – one half of the ‘Brawler Brothers’ – as we’re more commonly known as. Paul has taken to slapping guys by surprise these days, I think he’s trying to step away from the bare-knuckle scene. He’s more of a Sneaky Winder than a Peaky Blinder lately, so it may be the end of our brawling days. Thank goodness. I don’t think my knuckles and body can take much more.

Anyway, I was sat meditating a little while ago, basking in the sunlight (everyone else has gone to eat a Döner kebab) and I swear I thought I felt a spider crawling on my back. I ignored it but, while I’m typing this, I kid you not,  what looked like a black widow ran down its web by the door, saw me, and quickly ran back up into its hole. I guess what I’m saying is that perhaps I just narrowly escaped a painful and rather deadly encounter on my hotel balcony, far away from home. Imagine that.

Besides that, we have had a fun little tour so far, which started with 4 shows in the UK. London, Brighton, Birmingham, and Liverpool were all loads of fun and it was great seeing everyone who came out to see us and sing along to our tunes. We also had an awesome support act called The Magic E’s. Special mentions go out to Guy Heathcote, Jo Blackmore, and everyone at The Feathers Pub in Lichfield for making tour all that more of a jol.

Last night and tonight we’re supported by Lea and Toni, who are a duo called Lanies Willow.

Tomorrow – Austria, then back to Germany to finish up.

Then we’re going on a secret holiday for a few days. But that’s a secret.

Halloween will be an interesting evening as we have the night off, so who knows what we’ll get up to? Luckily we have our videographer and photographer pal Jerome on the road with us documenting most things, so just keep your eyes on our social media and you won’t miss a thing (except those things we make him delete, which is most things cos we’re so rock n roll)

Oh, and something happened last night that I’ve never seen happen before in all my 21 years of being in a band – Rob got gifted a SKATEBOARD. A. COMPLETE. SKATEBOARD. Branded with Parlotones logos and stuff. And not a cheap, kak imitation one either. At least I think he did. Maybe I dreamt it. If not, let’s hope he gets it home in one piece. If someone could please bring a spanner set to any of the upcoming shows I’m sure he’d appreciate it. 😁😁😁😁😆.

Oh and I’d love a Swiss Army Knife thanks.

Much love.
Glen.

Leaving on a jet plane

Leaving on a jet plane

In the mad rush to get his packing done, Paul found a few minutes to chat about plans for the UK & Europe tour and a few other topics.

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  • Phone cast 2 - UK & Europe tour 2019 00:00

Episode Nine – Back from a hiatus… or from the dead…?

Episode Nine - Back from a hiatus... or from the dead...?

After a long break, this podcast returns!

Paul chats to us about upcoming events, in particular the Choraltones production, happening at the Teatro at Monte Casino, on 28 November.

Credit:

Intro music by Rob Davidson.

Instagram: @the_understudy_

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