“Moving, keep moving, the tour never stops”
(Sea Legs ~ Frank Turner, 2008)
Yesterday Frank tweeted he’d share some touring stats today, now that he has played his last show of the year (and the decade) – solo or with the Sleeping Souls – and I thought I’d beat him to it *g*. I’m a bit of a stats nerd when it comes to Frank. In the way of counting my shows, keeping track of the songs I’ve heard, though I admit for some of my earlier shows I miss some songs, when setlist.fm lists weren’t complete. For a while I also kept track of the distances I travelled and the money I spent on travelling and accommodation, but I can’t find that file now and that’s probably for the better. FYI yesterday I spent about 200 € (£170) for my Frank solo UK trip in March. That does not include the tickets. I’m a lost cause…
Anyway, here are my Frank stats for 2019
12 shows. 10 with the Souls, 2 solo.
58 different songs. 244 in total.
9 cities. Bexhill-on-Sea. Birmingham. Duisburg. Leeds. London. Manchester. Nürnberg. Stockport. Wiesbaden.
2 countries. I’ve travelled to the UK a lot for Frank in 2019. And only now at the end signed up for the Eurostar royalty club. I could have collected so many points this year.
Farthest away from home: All the Manchester shows.
Closest to home: Duisburg. Only 45 minutes drive, which was nice.
Farthest to the stage: Birmingham Symphony Hall, 1st December. Quite literally farthest away, because we sat in the very last row up in the gods.
Closest to the stage: HatWorks, 28th January.
4 times I was fortunate to meet Frank, two of which were just a quick Hi & Bye moment, the other two I had the chance to chat a bit longer, which is always nice. My favourite was after the Duisburg show, where I also had the chance to chat with Tarrant and Ben for quite a while.
Favourite show: There are two very special ones. The year started amazing with the small intimate gig at HatWorks in Stockport. And my 10th show this year (which was also my show #50) took place at Alexandra Palace Theatre on 30th November and the whole experience was quite special indeed.
Favourite moments outside of shows: I live in the Duisburg area and thus volunteered to help him with the History Facts, which he had still been doing at that time. And when I say “volunteer”, I mean: Send him a long list of facts he didn’t ask for, but used anyway, even or especially the Koala one *g*. The other favourite moment came just a few days ago, when he shared my blog about the No Man’s Land Tour on Twitter. He’s a good un’. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve already got tickets to 4 more shows till March + of course the 4 shows of Lost Evenings in May and I guess there might be quite a few more after…
As the decade comes to an end, here’s a quick rundown for that
6.5 years of being a fan.
52 shows. 42 with the Souls. 10 solo.
115 different songs. 1104 in total.
26 cities. 6 countries.
2 tour flags I helped carry.
Too many wonderful nights, moments, experiences and friends to keep count. Thank You Frank.