King Charles, Thames Street, Poole
Tours + Surfin’ Dave + Pete Christie
Saturday 30th June – 8pm
Perhaps it was inevitable, but following the “one-night-only” reunion in March Pooleís near legendary punk-pop cult heroes TOURS are to play again at the King Charles pub on 30 June.
The band sent shockwaves through the music industry in May 1979 when their self-released single ëLanguage Schoolí so impressed John Peel at Radio 1 that he played it for 50 consecutive nights and declared it his second favourite 45 of all time behind ëTeenage Kicksí by Undertones.
Not bad for four snotty upstarts, two of them still teenagers. In the ensuing scramble Virgin Records signed the band to a £225,000 six-album deal then declared songwriters Ronnie Mayor and Richard Mazda “the punk Lennon-McCartney”.
They came, saw and considered conquering the charts. A second single followed, the fizzing “Tourist Information”, but it wasnít to be and within a year the whole thing had fallen apart, ripped to shreds by clashing egos and industry meddling in the band’s line up and future sound.
Time does funny things though, and in gathering their thoughts and material for Cherry Red’s 2010 retrospective “Album of the Year” (That Never Was) Ronnie and Richard spoke for the first time in 30 years and set in motion a chain of events that brought about a full TOURS reunion with original guitarist John Hole who played to a ram-packed and emotion-drenched King Charles in March.
Such was the feeling that Ronnie and John have decided to take TOURS forward and make it a living thing once again.
ìWeíve got five new songs, a couple of choice covers and all my old songs,î says Ronnie. “There are even t-shirts on sale at the gig only. We plan to find a way of keeping us all involved as long as there is sufficient interest in seeing TOURS on stage and we all enjoy the experience.”
Founder members Ronnie and John will be joined by new rhythm section Nick Waugh (drums) and Mark Pitfield (bass) after original drummer and bassist Basha and Steve Jeff decided not to continue. Richard Mazda, now based in New York, will not be appearing this time but plans to make another show in August.
It’ll be once again quite a night.
