Woody can't wait to play home-town concerts

AHEAD of the mighty Bastille’s first arena tour in over three years, drummer and former Devonport High School for Boys old boy, Plymouth’s own Chris ‘Woody’ Wood, took time out from rehearsals for a catch-up.

- BY CLARE ROBINSON

One of the biggest and best live bands in the world, Bastille will be kick starting their From All Sides tour with two dates at Plymouth Pavilions, which is a real feather in the cap for the city. So how much did pressure did it take from Woody to pull this off?

“We always do really well back home anyway, so it’s kind of no-brainer to do it” he says, “but if there’s not a Westcountry date on the tour schedule I do tend to kick off - last tour, we did Exeter, not Plymouth, which caused a few arguments. The first date Plymouth date sold out really quickly, so we added another the day before.”

The tour will be a celebration of the band’s glittering 15-year career that has seen them release three UK Number 1 albums, Bad Blood, Wild World and Give Me the Future, plus Doom Days, which got to Number 4.

“It’s a real privilege to get to do this,’ confesses Woody. “Often on tour we have a brand new album with new material to plug but this time, essentially, we're getting to cover as many bases as possible of our back catalogue from our four studio albums and a mix tapes as well. We've also done MTV unplugged, we've done all sorts of stuff, really, so we're trying to wear as many hats as possible...”

“I'm pushing for not doing the exact same set list every night. We have 10 dates and we want to try and hit a unique set list on every date, so never the same twice. Which is possible and challenging, yes, we just have to relearn some of our old songs - some we haven't played in eight years! So we're dusting off a fair few cobwebs at the moment.”