We’re heading up to Cambridge with Rachel W. Photography again today to take some more promotional pictures to help promote the tour. We have already taken photos in Ipswich, Norwich, and Colchester (previously).
Our tour with Riot Act kicks off next week. There are still tickets available and we hope you are able to attend one of the following dates:
Our tour with Riot Act kicks off in just two weeks time. Riot Act will be heading over to England for a short run of dates ahead of their festival appearance at British Steel in France. They will be playing the entirety of Riot’s Fire Down Under album. You can still grab tickets for the tour from here.
We will be ensuring we are in the best playing shape possible and working hard at Unit One Studios today on our tour set. We took a break from rehearsals last week to take the above photographs with Rachel W Photography. These were taken to help further promote the tour dates.
The new Falling Through Freedom t-shirts are being printed and sent out over the coming weeks, the patches will arrive later, which will mean everything is all caught up for 2021-22 before we can announce the next package. We are sorry for the delay in getting everything out this time, it has been a mammoth amount of recording, printing, and posting!
We’ve been working hard to push the FIRE DOWN UNDER tour with Riot Act. We are in effect the promoters of these events, so it’s on us to make these shows a success. We’ve booked venues we know are good in areas we know we can usually get decent crowds. Riot Act is coming from New York to do this tour, and we’re hoping to sell out all these shows for them when they are over. We’ve priced the advance tickets at just £8 to make it as affordable as possible. If you are yet to buy a ticket, you can do it from here: https://www.firedownundertour.co.uk/category/tour-tickets
Today we are having our second rehearsal following our successful tour with Chris Holmes. Last week (as seen above) we focused on rehearsing the songs we didn’t do on the tour and writing new material for a future release.
Today we head back into Unit One again for more rehearsals, we’ll be working on our set for Mearfest Flame in Nuneaton in September, and then our second tour of 2023 with Riot Act, who will be playing the entire Riot classic album Fire Down Under in full during the tour.
Tickets fore the Fire Down Under Tour are already selling well, with London already 20% sold months in advance of the show. If you wish to attend these shows, we advise you to book well in advance from here. Our last show at Three Wise Monkeys for example sold out in advance, and there were people who could not get into the venue on the night.
Kaine are pleased to announce their second tour of 2023, having recently returned from supporting W.A.S.P guitar legend Chris Holmes and his Mean Man band on his 65 Tour of the UK just this week.
Riot guitar legend Rick Ventura will be bringing his band Riot Act back to England for a short run of shows to warm up for British Steel Festival in France on October 7th. Riot Act will be playing the critically acclaimed classic Riot album FIRE DOWN UNDER in full and other classic Riot tunes.
Kaine will be joining them as the main support throughout the tour, having met the band on their previous UK Tour where they both toured alongside Lillian Axe.
Tickets will be available from the venue’s box offices and are on sale now from www.firedownundertour.co.uk – all tickets will be £8 in advance and £10 on the door. These are very limited, so book in advance to avoid disappointment.
30th of September 2023: The Music Room, Ipswich (ENG)
1st of October 2023: Waterfront, Norwich (ENG)
3rd of October 2023: Portland Arms, Cambridge (ENG)
4th of October 2023: Three Wise Monkeys, Colchester (ENG)
5th of October 2023: The Birthplace of Iron Maiden – The Cart & Horses, London (ENG)
7th of October 2023: British Steel Festival, Fismes, France (EU)
Rick Ventura was a member of the classic Riot line-up that recorded the legendary albums Narita (1979), Fire Down Under (1981), Restless Breed (1982), and Born In America (1983). He also appeared on the Riot Live (1989) live album. Fire Down Under is considered the ultimate Riot album, having made the Billboard 200 on its original release.
Riot Act released their debut double album Closer to the Flame (Global Rock Records) in 2022 which features both original material and re-recordings of Riot classics. The band then joined Lillian Axe on their U.K Tour in 2022 to promote the album, alongside the English Heavy Metal band Kaine.
This will be a rare opportunity for classic Rock/Metal fans to see Rick perform the FIRE DOWN UNDER album in full and all the other legendary Riot tunes from the 1980s.
I thought I would do a write-up on the year with the band given it’s been our busiest ever. In the early part of the year, we played a run of gigs put on by One Eye Toad Records which really helped us get back on the road again after the Covid-era restrictions were finally lifted in most cases. Most of these gigs were with Neverworld and Planet Fatale, two bands we have played with on a number of occasions over the years and with who we enjoy playing alongside. It’s worth mentioning that John Morter who organised these gigs and helped us get back to a regular gigging schedule sadly passed away last month. For all of his hard work and dedication to the scene, he will be greatly missed.
Coda – 9/3/2022
During that run of gigs, we had a one-night-only reunion with Anthony Murch on lead guitar. Ant was in the band from 2012-2015 and played on our first two albums. Anthony again played songs from both his time in the band and later albums since his departure. He’s currently playing alongside our former drummer Chris MacKinnon (who likewise joined in 2012, but after our debut album before leaving in 2018) in a band called It’s Not A Phase Mum, covering the 2000’s era classics which can be found here.
We made our return to two of our favourite venues this year too, both the Melbourn Rock Club and the Rock Den in Hatfield, both of which were fun nights.
A large portion of the year has been taken up with recording, editing, mixing, mastering, and so on. We worked extremely hard to get our new album After Extinction finished this year, as well as recording a further 10 tracks for two EPs, one of which has been released digitally and the other is currently being worked on. I have said previously that I cannot remember a time the band has been busier and 2022 certainly was a challenging year, but I feel a great relief to know everything on our end is now completed and there is very little remaining to do going into 2023.
It is worth mentioning that there will be a new Falling Through Freedom t-shirt and patch coming to all our Patreon’s soon, with two EPs (which include a multi-disc set) on CD heading out to everyone paying £3 or more ASAP. We have been slightly delayed in getting these out due to the Extinction After EP still being finalised! These will be with you soon, depending on Royal Mail strikes!
In August of course we joined the Lillian Axe/Riot Act (ex-Riot) tour as a replacement for Kim Melville. This is the first tour this line-up has done, and we had an amazing time on the road, and we are very thankful for the opportunity to play with two exceptional bands here in the U.K.
We aptly finished the year with two hometown shows in Colchester both at the Brewhouse on the 25th of November and Coda, on the 14th.
We also introduced a new Patreon tier, a band backer tier which was to help the band fund an opportunity we were recently offered. Without giving too much away at this stage, an official offer/contract has come through and we used some of the new Patreon funds to have the offer independently accessed by an expert, as well as general guidance on the best route forward for the band in 2023, with more the be revealed at a later date.
We will be setting off on tour next week in support of Lillian Axe and Riot Act! We are looking forward to hitting the road at the following dates/venues:
August 22nd, 2022 – Robin 2, Wolverhampton (buy tickets)
August 23rd, 2022 – Trillian’s, Newcastle (buy tickets)
August 24th, 2022 – Nightrain, Bradford (buy tickets)
August 25th, 2022 – Bannermans, Edinburgh (buy tickets)
August 26th, 2022 – Hangar 18, Swansea (buy tickets)
August 27th, 2022 – Underworld, Camden, London (buy tickets)
We will be heading to Unit One in Colchester today to begin our tour rehearsals for next month, as we will be supporting Lillian Axe and Riot Act. This is Lillian Axe’s first UK tour in 29 years and they will be promoting their brand new album From Womb To Tomb.
Pictures by Gallow Wood Media from our gig at Bassment, Chelmsford on Friday.
The dates/venues are:
August 22nd, 2022 – Robin 2, Wolverhampton (buy tickets)
August 23rd, 2022 – Trillian’s, Newcastle (buy tickets)
August 24th, 2022 – Nightrain, Bradford (buy tickets)
August 25th, 2022 – Bannermans, Edinburgh (buy tickets)
August 26th, 2022 – Hangar 18, Swansea (buy tickets)
August 27th, 2022 – Underworld, Camden, London (buy tickets)
We will be on first every night, so make sure you arrive in good time to be able to see our set.
I will be writing to everyone on our mailing lists, past and present, with information regarding our August tour and inviting everyone to the shows. The reason I am doing this is social media tends to hide our events and announcements from timelines and, much like with our Arts Centre show a few years back, we hope that more people will see the dates via mail than online and that will increase the overall turnout.
This is the biggest tour we have done since 2014 and the first with this line-up. We will be takings this opportunity to have a “soft” relaunch of our album Reforge The Steel which we were previously restricted from promoting due to COVID-19 lockdowns.
Rage, Kaine
August 22nd, 2022 – Robin 2, Wolverhampton (buy tickets)
August 23rd, 2022 – Trillian’s, Newcastle (buy tickets)
August 24th, 2022 – Nightrain, Bradford (buy tickets)
August 25th, 2022 – Bannermans, Edinburgh (buy tickets)
August 26th, 2022 – Hangar 18, Swansea (buy tickets)
August 27th, 2022 – Underworld, Camden, London (buy tickets)
