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Robb's 2018 Xmas Blog

3rd December 2018

It’s December so we are officially allowed to talk about, and play, Xmas songs! Now don’t go all humbug on me, that’s MY job!

Japan! Have you been? What an amazing country, the people are polite, the streets are clean, there’s no graffiti, no drunks, no homeless people, and they seem to have got the balance in society just right (from what I saw). Anyway let’s not get too deep with that! We flew from Newcastle to Brussels with BMI, (what a lovely airline) and then onto Japan with ANA (All Nippon Airways) and again I would highly recommend them, fantastic service and the Chivas Regal 12 year old whiskey as part of your complementary drinks! Need I say anymore? The TV screen on the back of the seat in front told me we had flown 6127 miles from Brussels across almost the entire width of Russia to Tokyo. We arrived late afternoon and after what was supposed to be an hour wait for another UK band to arrive after us, nearly 3 hours later they turned up at the bus saying they were ‘detained’ by the local authorities and interviewed as to their intentions while in Japan! I don’t suppose it helped there cause the fact they were all wearing bullet belts! The ride into town was quite spectacular with the Tokyo skyline being every bit as impressive (if not more) as any major city in the States! Bags in the rooms, and straight out to sample the night life. We ended up in a ‘British’ pub called the ‘Hub.’ Interesting as there was absolutely nothing British about it at all! We ate the local Japanese cuisine which was very nice, drank local Japanese beer which was very nice and stuck out like sore thumbs! There was lots of talking and pointing in our direction, that’s probably because they couldn’t understand why Santa was drinking in there pub wearing earrings! Oh well….


The show was fantastic, we actually sold out our night which was very exciting and the people that came to see us were….crazy and warm and friendly at the same time!

We really hope to go back and do more shows there. The return flight home wasn’t too bad apart from the plane was so hot. Why do they think you want to be sat in 70 degrees with your clothes on? Fair enough if you could wear your budgie smugglers!

We were only home for 5 days before our appearance at the fantastic Hard Rock Hell festival in Wales. We were on at 17.40 and if you were there you will bare me out in saying the room was full to bursting. Two and a half thousand people, that’s quite a sight from the stage I can tell you. If you were there, thank you for being fabulous!


 

Thank you to our great friend Aruaud Quinart from Belgium for the photos.

Next day and we were on the road to Inverness to play a new festival called ‘Monsterfest’ at the Iron Works venue. We checked into the very nice 4 star Pentahotel across the road. Once sorted, we walked to the venue to see what was what. Almost as soon as we were shown our dressing room Marco Mendoza the bass player from the Dead Daisies comes in followed by the rest of the Daisies. They spent more time in our dressing room than their own! I ended up having an in depth discussion with Doug Aldrich about talk boxes! What an excellent bunch of fella’s they are, really really nice guys. Our show was cut a bit short because of previous over running bands but it was a great band performance and the audience were as always, fantastic.

Then came our home town Newcastle show, opening up for the Dead Daisies on their Daisyland UK tour. Thursday night and the Toon was rocking and roaring! At 19.30 we hit the stage and I have to say my heart skipped a beat when I saw the biggest crowd we have played to in Newcastle since we sold out the City Hall in 1981! A MASSIVE thank you to one and all, you rocked big time! Oh and one or two surprise guests turned up! North East legend Jimmy Nail for starters…



 

Big thank you to David Wilson for the shots.

Here are some of the social media quotes that followed the next day…

         
              

Thank you all so much for your continued support, have a great Xmas and a splendid New Year and don’t forget to check back for more, ‘Robb’s blogs!’

‘Merry Christmas to one and all!’
 


September 2018 Blog
17th September 2018
 

Right then let’s tell you about this lot! First off, how are you all? It’s probably been too long since I ‘blogged’ but to be honest busy isn’t the word! As you may or may not know we are going into the recording studio on January the 4th to, record our 13th studio album so apart from these shows we have been writing and demoing new songs. We’ve amassed some 35 song ideas and from those we now have 13 killer tunes we are all proud of. Anyway I digress…So first up on the 5th of May we flew out to Barcelona to play one of the bigger festivals of the summer. It has a capacity of 30,000 and it was full! Why wouldn’t it be? Ozzy, Kiss, Priest and the Scorps…Oh and the Tygers of course! We played the ‘Rock Tent Stage,’ which potentially has a capacity of 1500. The Tygers opened up the Saturday, and at precisely 14.00 two and a half thousand lovely Tygers fans crammed in to welcome us this wonderful festival.



As you can see it’s not your ordinary size tent! Amazing, and that’s an understatement! Huge thank you as always to our crew, Ludy our agent and Tour manager and Will our tech. You guys make it so much easier to tour! Stories from Barcelona…well Craig, Tom and I spent the night we arrived, Friday, in the company of Axel Rudy Pell ‘Chewing the fat,’ so to speak. Talking everything music and beyond, what a nice fella he is. Oh and we might have had a glass or two…

Here are a couple more shots from Barca…

Thanks to Metal Journal for the fantastic photos….

 
Five days later we flew out to Stuttgart airport in Germany to play the wonderful, ‘Bang Your Head’ festival located in Balingen. We arrived the night before our performance and took the opportunity to go to the festival to see what was going on. As soon as we got there I bumped into an old friend, Achim the stage manager of the event, the guy is a legend and a great stage manager. Accept were headlining and as always delivered a great set. After several JD and cokes it was back to the hotel and sleep time!

The hotel this year was in a different location, it was just outside the city and very close to the festival site. Very comfortable and a lot of the festival bands were staying there. As we were having a late night drink on return from seeing Accept, Loudness from Japan pull up and ask us if this was their hotel! ‘Probably,’ we said, ‘why don’t you try to check in and find out?’ Then the Pretty Maids from Denmark pull up and check in! They join us for a beer or two and then for me it was defiantly bed time! The morning of our show we turned up for breakfast with 10 minutes to spare before the service stopped! Already sat there were members from most of the acts appearing that day, Girlschool, Pretty Maids, Loudness and many more. Lots of banter ensued and the breakfast wasn’t bad either!

We were on early afternoon, my goodness was it hot! The stage was half in direct sunlight and half shade. It was so hot my guitar tuner pedal top melted and slid down the side of the pedal!

And the ‘Live’ shots…


And of course a big shout out to the wonderful photographers…
Tine Gennaio, Paul Bossenmaier and Paolo Manzi.
And a couple of weeks later we were in the UK playing in Edinburgh at the opening night of the Fringe festival at Stramash a cracking venue in the heart of the city. ‘Size Queen’ opened up for us and did a tremendous job warming up the crowd. The venue was full by 21.00, (our stage time) and we had an absolute ball playing there.

The next day we were on our way to ‘Real Time Live’ venue in Chesterfield. With a warm welcome from the staff and the venue it’s self looking real cool inside, done out like a proper rock ‘n’ roll place with Marshall 4x12 cabs as part of the bar and the cash till’s were made out of real drums! The whole place is just fantastic. Oh and down stairs to the venue is a cracking music shop owned by the same people! Now if you ever get a chance to be photographed by a young lady called Heather Burns jump at the chance, she’s a bit good!



After the show the evening descended into drinking Jagermeister bombs with the owners and all round bad heads very soon after!
The next morning we were up late and met for breakfast at 11.45, fifteen minutes before service stopped! The chef was well happy (not!) having to cook us fresh bacon, sausage and egg at that time! It was a good brecky though and set us up for the day’s road haul ahead. Five hours later and after driving through a mile of pear orchards we arrived at the back stage of the ‘New Day Festival.’ Like a lot of festivals these days the staff are all volunteers, but what a nice lot of people! From the girls in the hospitality tent knocking out proper ham butties and glasses of home made cider to the lads on the stage sorting things out! You really couldn’t ask for more. We can’t wait to be asked back! On just before us, were John Coghlan’s Quo. I met John and his wife Jill before their show and chatted to him at length, what a nice couple and great to hear all the old Quo tunes again played properly!


And a few days later we flew into Schiphol airport, Amsterdam to play a festival just out of the city at Deest in the province of Gelderland. We were staying in an old farm which had been turned into a guest house, so just outside the bedroom window were horses, pigs, goats, chickens and the friendliest miniature pony called, ‘Hero,’ you would wish to meet! We had been up all night travelling so we holed up at the accommodation to catch up on some sleep. 18.00 And we were off to the show, it was a bright sunny night and the mood was high amongst the band, the piss taking in the tour bus was at an all time high! As we arrived at the back stage area there was a band on stage called, ’Tricklebolt’ who really impressed me. They gave me their current CD and it’s very good. Our show was extra enjoyable for some reason, can’t quite put my finger on it but it felt really good. And after the show we were treated like kings, with home cooked food and enough Jack Daniels to satisfy Mr Daniels himself! Thank you to Arnaud Quinart for the photo’s…

The final festival in this blog was Vostertfeesten in Bree, Belgium. We flew from our home town, Newcastle for this one. Our accommodation was in Center Parcs and we arrived in good time for a glass of fizz and a rest. Each of us had our own villa, very posh! On our way to the show we got lost! Which meant when we finally arrived it was a bit of a rush to get set up and on stage on time. Our great friends Oliver Dawson Saxon (ODS) were also on the bill and headlining was Vandenberg’s Moonkings. I met Adrian after our show, he’s a good looking lad, and what a nice fella!


And here he is…Arnaud our good friend and Vostertfeesten festival photographer! Thank you sir!
Next festival blog will be from the ‘Metal Assault Festival,’ in Japan on November the 4th. Stay tuned my little Tygerett’s…


Belgium & Holland
18th June 2018
 


Once again it was a ‘On through the night’ deliverance that took us to Manchester airport for our 06.55 flight to Brussels South Charleroi airport. Our friends Jet2 provided a sterling service and by nine thirty we had cleared customs and were sat waiting for Jack to arrive from Italy. An hour later with Jack in tow we started walking through the car park looking for Wilbert our crew boss, tech and Mercedes tour bus driver! It was a short drive, (forty five minutes) to our hotel. The sun was out to play and the day just couldn’t go wrong!! We rocked up to the hotel reception and checked in. Wilbert speaks several languages and turned to me and said the promoter had booked us all in a ‘family room!’ ‘No, no, no, no and no! Two single beds and bunk beds for the 5 kids.
 


We rang the promoter who wasn’t available, surprise surprise, then we rang our agent / tour manager Ludy who immediately booked us rooms in another hotel. Thank god for Ludy that’s all I can say! Our new hotel was an old monastery that had been converted into a fantastic 4 star hotel in acres of vineyards.
 


This was the walk from our tour bus up to the hotel reception, stunning!
Show time came around very fast and we travelled in our bus to the festival in under 15 minutes.
Now the bill was an unusual one with two out and out punk bands appearing on the bill, The Exploited, who were headlining and Total Chaos from the States. Here’s a picture of Shawn, the guitar player from Total Chaos and me in our dressing room. What a nice guy and a great guitar player!
 


So, showtime…
 








 

We had a great time slot on the bill at 20.15, the hall was at capacity and the mainly punk audience really were receptive. Well run and a great event to play. Thank you to everyone who looked after us, “Merci beaucoup mes amis!” After a few back stage drinks post show we were off to our lovely hotel for a well earned rest!
Next day, the sun was up way before me and by 09.30 breakfast time, the temperature was already 22 degrees! The next show was only an hour and a half away so we set off at a leisurely pace to get there. Just after we crossed the border into Holland we stopped for an ice cream. We can be posh when we want to be! Around 14.30 we pulled into the car park of the Calluna rock café, an unexpected rock venue, in the middle of nowhere! With hundreds of Harley Davison motor bikes parked outside we knew we were in the right place for a great gig! As we walked into the venue a large green Amazon parrot greeted us with a blood curdling squawk. We were ushered to the bar where freshly poured Dutch larger was put in front of us as a ‘welcome to our venue’ gesture. The owners were so friendly and the show was a bit good as well…
 










 

After the show we got to meet quite a lot of the bikers and one in particular…I forget his name but what a nice chap! 6’ 6” tall and twenty four stone! I had to ask, “You don’t look like a ballet dancer what is your profession?” “I’m a lumberjack!” You know when you just want to burst into song but daren’t?
 


 

Our accommodation for this show was in a bungalow in a small forest nearby. It was amazing, with a few beers when we arrived there it was goodnight from me and goodnight from him! The next morning we were invited back to the venue for a home cooked breakfast which was really, really good, we said our goodbye’s and set off to Eindhoven airport. Jack’s flight back to Italy was 4 hours before ours so after we dropped Jack off we headed to Wilbert’s house for lunch. Wilbert is our crew boss and everything tech! We would be lost without him…And what a lovely house Will and his wife have. Thank you for your hospitality and generosity sir!
Flight time, home time, and till the next time, see ya….

 




May 2018 Update
3rd May 2018
 

Hi everyone, hope you are all good? What’s going on in the Tyger enclosure at the moment? Well lots actually! We decided only to take 4 shows before going into the studio in May, the first was ‘Ice Rock,’ a festival in Switzerland in January. Next show is ‘Metal Thunder Jackets,’ festival in Lyon, France on April the 21st and two shows in early May, ‘Hertals Rock City,’ festival on the 5th in Vorselaar, Belgium and 6th in Ommen, Holland at the fantastic ‘Café Calluna.’ We have had a few personal and technical issues recently which have caused us to put back the new studio recordings till January. Things happen, and I also believe things happen for a reason so waiting a little longer for the new Tygers album will be worth it I promise! So, when January comes its full steam ahead into ‘Trinity Heights,’ recording studio to lay down the tracks for the new album with Fred Purser as our engineer. Of course Fred was in the Tygers with me back in 1981/’82 and played on the famous ‘Cage’ album. Fred owns ‘Trinity Heights’ recording studio, and back in 2000 we asked him if he could mix a live recording we had from 1981. Fred had to hire in a 24 track Ampex 2 inch tape machine just to listen and play the tapes! This turned out to be the ‘Live at Nottingham Rock City ‘81’ release. The man is a bit of a wizz when it comes to anything ‘Studio.’ At the moment we have 12 songs finished and a thirteenth on its way. Not sure how many tracks will be on the finished album and how many will be ‘extra’s!’ That’s a record company call. I can tell you there will be two guest guitar players playing a solo each on different tracks!

The new songs...well I think they are the best yet, big, fat, monster riff driven, and that’s just the ballad!! The art work for the front cover and booklet is coming along nicely as well, Roberto our artist from Naples, (Who did the last cover) is handling that and new live shows are being booked as I write this. It is without doubt going to be a very busy time once the new album is out and if you can make any of the shows please make time to come and meet us and say, ‘Hi.’ Like all catz, a dish of milk, (Beer) some Kitekat food (Kebabs) and a tickle on the belly (that’s up to you!) and we’re all yours!

We have some shows in the UK later this year. August see’s us playing the opening night of the Edinburgh fringe festival, Real Time Live in Chesterfield and ‘A New Day’ festival in Kent. In November we’re playing Lounge 666 in Archway in London, the marvellous HRH festival in North Wales and the new Monsterfest in Inverness then some shows in Europe. New shows are added almost daily, so keep checking our web site, www.tygersofpantang.com and select the tab ‘gigs.’















 

Thought I would post some unseen photos from my personal collection, thank you to all the photographers who took them. So it’s October for the new album recordings and a shed load of dates to support the release in 2019. We look forward to seeing you all, until the next blog...



Ice Rock 2018
1st February 2018
 




So let’s start by wishing you all ‘Happy New Year!’ Although we are into February now! and with the start of 2018 so starts a whole bunch of new Tygers adventures….This time last year we were asked to headline one of the nights for the fantastic ‘Ice Rock’ festival in Switzerland. Now as you have come to expect the Tyger’s travel arrangements are always interesting! So I set off on Thursday the 4th of January about ten thirty night time (22.30) to pick up Gav then on to get Mick. With all three of us on board we set off straight to Manchester airport where we were meeting Craig about 03.30am. Check in was at 04.00am and the first of two flights (we were flying to Zurich via Munich) was due for takeoff at 06.05am. The flight was a KLM scheduled one to Munich and the journey was very comfortable, with a little bit of food, and a glass or two of wine, the perfect breakfast was served! KLM are excellent. We had a 2 hour layover in Munich and then a short 40 minute jump into Swiss air space where we encountered some incredible clear air turbulence! The plane bucked like a bronco for several minutes making Craig want to empty his bowels into his trousers repeatedly! (He couldn’t go to the toilet as we had all been told to strap into our seats tight!) On the other hand I love a bit of rumpity bumpity me! The landing was a masterpiece considering the conditions and Zurich ‘terra firma’ was a very welcome sight! With our tour bus waiting for us on arrival we were soon on our way to the festival site near the city of Emmental. We checked into our hotel around 15.45 and the thought of the next four hours down time was very welcome. The tour bus picked us up at 20.45 and 20 minutes later we were in our dressing room eating….you guessed it, Emmental cheese! Rude not too really! And with a bit of salami and some Jack Daniels what’s not to like?

Show time was 22.30 till midnight and we finally made it back to the comfort of the hotel rooms around 01.40am. The lobby call for the bus and the return journey to the airport was fifty minutes later, yes that’s right at 02.30am! We reached Zurich international airport for a 05.00am check in and a 06.55am flight direct to Manchester. Are you still with the plot? I then got into my car with Gav and Mick at 08.50 and drove three hours back to Tyneside. So I was up from eight o’clock Thursday morning till ten o’clock on Saturday night, mmm… let me count that up yep, sixty two hours with probably 3 hours catnap along the way! Who says Rock’n’Roll is glamorous?

Anyway our 90 minute headline spot was made especially fantastic because of the amazing Swiss fans, you lot know how to rock a bit as well don’t you!
 


 


 


 

 
 



Big thanks to our marvellous photographers, Mel B and Unni Nordheim for their great pictures.

‘Switzerland, we shall return!’

Cheers Robb x
 

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