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Be sure to catch the new music video for "The Sound" here!
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It's been a great tour in Europe for Switchfoot, who concluded the European leg by playing two contrasting but pretty large festivals in the UK the past couple days. On Saturday, the boys played the Frenzy Festival in Scotland. The Scottish are insane! International fans truly put us Americans to shame, I'm telling you! Here are some videos:
Stars/Oh! Gravity.
Your Love Is a Song
Hello Hurricane
Needle
On Fire
Awakening
Only Hope
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Yesterday, the band played Download Fest, which featured a whose who of rock 'n' roll within the last few decades, including Slash, Billy Idol, Motorhead, Stone Temple Pilots, Aerosmith and more. Here are some of the tweets coming out of that raucous event:
@switchfoot:
- Played Download Fest today, with Slash, Billy Idol, Motorhead, STP, Aerosmith & others. We opened for Napalm Death. Wild, muddy insanity.
@jonathanforeman:
- Motörhead just played "Ace of Spades." Slash, B. Idol, Napalm Death, Dillenger Escape Plan, & Switchfoot already played. Typical day. ?
- wow. what a day. I'm amped to have be here- amped to be heading back to the states. California, here we come!
Jon and Chad even cracked out the old Myspace blog with some insight on how their day at the Download Festival went. Here it is reproduced below:
from chad:
Climbing into the Switchfoot tourbus I strip down to my boxers and throw my mud-soaked shoes and brown splattered jeans in a trash bag. We are enroute to London Heathrow after our first time playing at the Download Festival in Donington... and it was amazing!! There is nothing humanly possible that will wash the mud from my shoes or the smile from my face after such an epic day of Rock n Roll. We threw 30 minutes of heartfelt songs out to the Donington crowd who threw them right back, singing along while throwing fists in the air. Music is such a magical way to connect with thousands of strangers, at the end of it we were all singing the same song. Our dressing room was next to The Damned Things and we got to talking with Scott Ian from Anthrax and Andy and Joe from Fall Out Boy. After our set I stuck around to see our new friends play and I was glad I did. They played such epic guitar riffs and furious beats that everyone watching became honorary graduates of the school of Rock. I thoroughly enjoyed my education today and can't wait to return to Donington!
from jon:
Before I dropped out of college I used to work as a stage hand for the rock shows coming through. That was the first time I ever saw STP play live. Back then, pushing gear into the venue meant that I could see the show for free, (even get paid!). In some ways, very little has changed: at a festival like this I get paid to hang out, watch rock and roll, and even play a few tunes of our own.
But in other ways, it's a very different situation. Dreams I never even thought to dream have come to fruition. Playing rock and roll around the world has given us the chance to hang out with some of our heroes. Earlier this year Meatloaf put one of my songs on his record- Crazy! Today alone marked some pretty great memories: Shaking hands with Slash. Chatting with Dean DeLeo about the English weather. Playing immediately before Napalm Death. Standing next to Lemmy Kilmister on main-stage. These are surreal moments for me.
However, my favorite moment of the day came right before we left for the airport. Since I'm about to jump on a 12 hour flight home I decided that a shower would be appropriate. The portable showers were located across from our dressing room and right behind from main-stage. With all the other "firsts" that had occurred throughout the day, a "first" wash in a portable shower seemed fitting activity. As I washed the Donington mud off my body and shoes, Aerosmith burst into "Walk this way." Quite the serenade!
No, nothing has changed: I'm still singing rock and roll in the shower. Except now I'm backstage.
For a few more pictures, head over and check out the blog itself!
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Jon and Tim Foreman were interviewed on the UK alternative rock magazine Kerrang's Podcast:
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Footsoldiers
As you all know, "The Sound" music video was released yesterday. Be sure to share it around with as many people as you know!
We're working on getting the video onto YouTube. As soon as we have details on that, be sure to be follow this space as well as the Footsoldiers twitter feed for instructions. We're going to rock this thing, and since Switchfoot just recently hit over 50,000 subscribers on Youtube, the fields are ripe for the picking, so to speak!
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Speaking of "The Sound" video, be watching for a new FootColumn that I wrote up analyzing and picking it apart the best I can. If you're not into that sort of thing, no worries. I won't hold it against ya. :)
