Friday, November 14, 2008

Enjoying View from Dundee

SCOTTISH rockers THE VIEW, one of the UK’s hardest working bands, are back on the road doing what they do best after a well earned break.

The View recently enjoyed a solitary week off work and used the seven days to sun themselves in Mexico. So where’s the tans?

“Left them there!” says guitarist Pete Reilly. “We’re Scottish, we don’t do suntans. I was wearing factor 30 but I still got burnt really badly. I was walking about like Edward Scissorhands.”

The break also saw them drunkenly try to relax with a round of golf only for them to smash their buggy into a tree.

Thankfully they returned to their Dundee home in one piece and headed straight out on tour in support of latest single 5Rebbeccas.

Taken from the album sessions in Wales and produced by Owen Morris, the single features the B-sides Dun Deal, Mr Men Book and For You.

Their 35-date UK tour brings the track - and various others set to be included on the 2009 album release - to the Cornerhouse in Middlesbrough on Sunday.

The tour is already well underway and brought one riotously celebratory show in their home town.
“It was brilliant, a Dundee band playing Dundee’s hall with four Dundee bands supporting,” says Reilly. “Plus, The Beatles graced that stage!

“There’s never been a rock’n’roll band from Dundee, ever. But that’s what’s good about Dundee - there’s no pressure.
“All the bands are mates, they’ll all do anything to get their mates further or themselves further.

“In a lot of big cities, like probably Manchester or Glasgow but especially London, the bands are all jealous of each other if they get something good for themselves.

“But in Dundee if we got something good, all our mates would be like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s brilliant’.

“And we’re like that with other bands - check these lot out. Everybody’s in it together in the music scene there. The important thing is to push Dundee as a music scene rather than hold everybody else back.”

A little over two years ago Reilly, Kyle Falconer (vocals/guitar), Kieren Webster (vocals/bass) and Steve Morrison (drums) were four schoolmates from Dryburgh, a housing scheme on the southern outskirts of Scotland’s fourth city.

Barely out of their teens, they were enthusiastic players of covers in local pubs, notably Squeeze’s Up The Junction - now a firm fans’ favourite and regular in the band’s set.

Since summer 2006, though, The View have had a high old time supporting Primal Scream and Babyshambles, appearing on the NME Brats tour, and generally gaining a reputation as the hardest gigging band in Britain and beyond.

“But it just feels good that this is our own tour,” says Reilly. “With our own laminates and our own catering - and our own bus at last, rather than a transit van.”

THE VIEW and HOLY GHOST REVIVAL:
Cornerhouse, Middlesbrough Sunday. Entry: £12.50

By Andrew Pain, Evening Gazette, November 14th 2008

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