Perennial, the self-described modernist punk band from New England, spent eight days in old England last December. The band’s UK tour took them to such legendary music towns as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and London, and you better believe this history-minded group took full advantage of it. Chad Jewett, the band’s guitarist, kept a detailed journal during the tour, and shares it here at Paste. Check out their excellent 2024 album Art History and look forward to their next release, the upcoming EP Perennial ’65.
December 6 – 6 AM GMT, Heathrow Airport – London, United Kingdom
After seven hours across the Atlantic Ocean six at night is suddenly six in the morning, and it is giddy energy alone that gets us through the winding corridors and kilometer-long moving walkways of the international terminal at Heathrow Airport. My Epiphone Casino arrives in one piece, as does Ceej’s snare drum and Chelsey’s electric organ. A nice bit of good fortune for what will be one of the single best weeks in the near-decade that Perennial has been a band.
We book an Uber to Brighton, a seaside town in southeast England, to pick up our tour van, which Chelsey and I will be driving ourselves. Had we driven this large of a vehicle for any real amount of time before in our lives? No. Had we ever driven in England, where the entire flow of traffic is the opposite of what we know? Also no. So Chelsey and I watch our Uber driver like we’re cramming for finals, hoping to unlearn two decades of driving instincts in about 75 minutes.
Brighton is beautiful—a coastal holiday town decorated for Christmas, palm trees and pastel beach-side huts somehow poetic in the December chill. Our van is ready, complete with two rented Vox AC30 guitar amps (absolutely essential) and a set of cymbals for Ceej. Chelsey mercifully volunteers for the first drive, back to London for our first show. She passes with flying colors, skillfully getting us to our hotel in time for the one-hour nap that we hope will chip away at least a bit at our jet lag. Along the way the soundtrack is entirely a Greater London affair: The Clash, The Who, The Jam.
The night’s venue is The Cavendish Arms, a picturesque pub south of the Thames. Decked out for the season, the Arms is welcoming and cozy, a warmly offbeat version of a classic English pub: dark wood and ornate Victorian decor made singular by an artsy, DIY atmosphere. Half the space is set aside for music, the other for a bar and a crazy-quilt collection of seats and tables, alcoves and corners. Gay Skeleton Club, Felicette, and Keep It Together each play for half an hour; all three are great.
We throw ourselves into our set, mostly songs from our newest record, Art History. This, proverbially speaking, is it: Our first 30 minutes of music in England. And we’ll never forget it. The audience is kind, welcoming, animated. They’re happy we’re here, and so are we. The soundperson graciously gives us their blessing to be our ideal LOUD selves. Folks know the words and sing them loud, which positively bowls us over; 3,300 miles from home and we’re hearing Perennial songs sung back to us. It’s the sort of thing you dream about. It’s the sort of thing I have dreamed about. For decades. A hopelessly devoted fan of English music, from mod to two-tone to British Invasion and Brit-pop, trip-hop and early punk and glam, my musical vocabulary is the stuff of London Calling and The Who Sell Out and Foxbase Alpha and Diamond Dogs. Art History in particular was definitively influenced by the art pop of Swinging London. And now we’re here, in front of an amazing crowd of instant friends. Exhausted as we are, we still find ourselves awake into the wee small hours, overwhelmed and overjoyed. The night was a dream.
December 7 – Trowbridge, United Kingdom
Our next show takes us to the Western edge of England, to the small town of Trowbridge and a delightfully eccentric pub and venue called The Pump. Along the way there is a stop to Aldi, where dozens of British pounds are spent on bags full of the sweetest pastries you could possibly imagine. We overhear two employees comparing notes on various American fast food chains they’ve visited. Somehow we resist the urge to chime in, which would no doubt have blown their minds considering we are in the middle of nowhere. I assume driving duties for the first time, doing my best to keep us on the road as we just happen to drive by Stonehenge. A genuinely uncanny moment: glancing out the window to see an eon’s old stone mystery—as iconic and other-worldly as the Mona Lisa or Notre Dame—float by between the Esso station and sheep pastures. The first Perennial UK tour will be replete with these sorts of moments, surreal and joyous.
The Pump, like the Cavendish Arms, is split between a pub and a small theatre. The walls of the venue are covered with old brass and string instruments, with the added festive touch of Father Christmas hats and red stockings. Our host Simon arrives with vegan chocolate fudge and meatless sausage rolls. Free food of any kind is the lifeblood of a tour, and free food this delicious does not last long as Chelsey and I in particular tuck in. Severe wind and rain made traveling to The Pump tricky for some folks coming from west of the town, but the theatre is still close to full by the time ourselves and Steatopygous—a brilliant punk band from the town Devizes—play. Trowbridge is new to us, but apparently we weren’t new to Trowbridge, and once again Chelsey and I are sharing vocal duties with an incredibly enthusiastic and kind audience. An encore is requested and very happily granted. Folks stick around for an hour, introducing themselves, asking about our travels. A trio of fellows from nearby Wales wait patiently as Chelsey, Ceej, and I fight through our jet lag to unearth the Lemon On Plastic flexi discs we brought.
A desperate call is placed to the rural inn we’ve booked for the night to expect us later than planned. We finally pack up, already missing the generous folks of Trowbridge, and head to our hotel. If the innkeeper was annoyed at having to stay up and wait for three American ne’er-do-wells he certainly didn’t show it, and was delighted to find out we were in a band. After a tour of the inn—a lovely, quaint public house and dining hall with a handful of rooms to rent for the night—we landed in our beds, approximately four seconds before passing out.
The day’s soundtrack: The Creation, Dusty Springfield, The Zombies, Air
December 8 – Nottingham, United Kingdom
At this point we were three days into our UK tour and had yet to step foot in a record store. So perhaps what happened when we arrived at the Nottingham Rough Trade location was inevitable: We went nuts. With only a half hour left till closing time, and only a little more time than that to grab food before that evening’s show, we criss-crossed the store like one of those kids in a Nickelodeon Toys R Us shopping spree (millennials will know what I’m talking about). The very accommodating cashier looked on in bemusement as three over-caffeinated Americans in matching striped shirts and Chelsea boots stacked up My Bloody Valentine UK pressings and Small Faces live bootlegs. I checked a must-have record off my tour shopping list and picked up Eddie Piller presents More Of The Mod Revival on red and blue vinyl. It’s heaven.
The night’s show, featuring our UK label-mates Stuart Pearce (excellent post-punk; a less acerbic take on The Fall) and Sumos (wonderfully tuneful early 2000s indie-pop) was held in a practice space/studio on a rainy side street, an unassuming first floor suite inside unassuming warehouse building. It’s the kind of space your mind drifts to when you’re driving from point A to point B in the middle of some sleepy night on tour, wondering how many random apartments, basements, converted office suites, old warehouses, and college cafes out there in the endless landscape currently have a band playing as loud as they possibly can that very minute. You hope it’s as many as possible.
The day’s soundtrack: The Beatles, The Specials, Northern Soul compilations
December 9 – Edinburgh, Scotland (Day Off)
With a day off between our Nottingham and Glasgow shows, Edinburgh was that evening’s destination. The drive took us along the eastern coast, overlooking the midnight blue expanse of the North Sea, dark and profound in the December chill. On the other side of the road green hills rolled and ebbed, framed in the distance by the far off grey edifices of even larger hills and mountains.
We arrive in Edinburgh shortly after sunset, and are met with the Christmas-lit daydream of the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Built around an honest-to-god castle (Edinburgh Castle, built in the 11th century, a date that is so long ago as to be entirely intangible) Edinburgh is an inviting tangle of alleys, side-streets, promenades and half-hidden staircases. It’s Dickensian; it’s a fairy tale. We can barely make 50 feet of progress down any given avenue without snapping pictures of old Regency-era city buildings, gothic churches, alleys half-lift behind wrought-iron fences. The wonder of the city, of all the poetic mystery of a town that shows off thousand years of architecture and culture, is only underlined by the holiday good humor in the air. It’s a Monday, two weeks off from Christmas, but the pubs are packed and the curly-cue streets that ribbon the castle stay bustling well into the night. Colorful lights in the shape of Father Christmas, fir trees, and snowflakes blink atop buildings that must be 400 years old if they’re a day.
From the top of the hill, on the wide stone entryway leading up to Edinburgh Castle, you can see the city unfold in all directions, Victorian brick and Brutalist cement, Modernist glass university buildings and wood cottages, all accented with dots of light like a thousand nightlights. It is breathtaking. After a dinner in a warmly bustling pub and we’re on the road to Glasgow, all three of us in a dreamy reverie.
Soundtrack: The Animals, Belle & Sebastian, Orange Juice
December 10 – Glasgow, Scotland
The day begins with a trip to the venerable record store Monorail Music. Purchases include LPs by Orange Juice, Saint Etienne, and Dolly Mixture, along with a Soul Jazz dub compilation and some Francois Hardy CDs. Our stacks need multiple edits as we remember that we also have to eat on this tour.
Fog sets in early: a cold, opaque sheet of misty grey silk that cuts visibility down to about 50 feet in any direction. But it’s our first time in Glasgow, in the heart of December, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The city of Belle & Sebastian. The city of Orange Juice. The venue—the first that resembles anything like what we have back home in the U.S.—is decked out in red, green, and gold streamers and plastic Christmas decorations. Across the street is a convenience store boasting every Dr. Pepper flavor currently in production. I quickly grab the Coconut Cream variety (the official beverage of Perennial) and a Peanut Butter Kit-Kat (a favorite snack of the trip which I will buy nearly a dozen of between landing and taking off). The show is a blast, the cozy atmosphere only embellished by the dense fog that has set in more absolutely throughout the evening. Park Safely and PVC start the evening; both are fantastic.
The venue boasts long benches that run the whole length of both walls, and Chelsey and I indulge in one of our favorite mid-set rituals: climbing whatever the tallest thing we can clamber atop to sing the bridge of “Up-tight.” Today it’s those benches. In Trowbridge it was a conveniently placed chair. In Nottingham a bass cab. This daily challenge will only get more reckless as the tour goes on.
December 11 – York, UK
We bid a fond farewell to our Glasgow hotel room—an absolutely gorgeous 18th century
sitting room-turned-apartment suite with high, ornate ceilings, a fireplace, and dormer window looking out on a tree-lined riverside (our Priceline skills are the envy of the indie rock world). Chelsey takes a stroll through the nearby Glasgow Botanical Gardens, gorgeous and mystical in the dreamy morning mist—a world of pastel greens and blues, Victorian greenhouses half hidden and made faintly impressionistic in the fog.
The night’s show is in York (home to our UK record label, Safe Suburban Home Records), and thus a three-hour drive back into England. A quick pre-show trip to a grocery store allows us to replenish our supply of recklessly sweet British snacks. I spot and immediately purchase a box of cakes dubbed Mr. Kipling’s Frosty Fancies. Imagine the sugariest Hostess product you can conjure, then double the sweetness. They’re delicious, and will prove a convenient source of quick fuel for the next few shows. Jim, head of Safe Suburban Home, welcomes us with more snacks. Jim booked nearly the entire tour, graciously answering our endless questions and patiently humoring Chelsey’s multiple requests to be taught British swears.
The venue, The Fulford Arms, is built into a centuries-old public house. It’s a stunning room: a punk club on one end and a warm and homey bar on the other. Our host is endlessly kind and welcoming (this, indeed, proves true for every venue on the tour) and the space is beautiful. The set ends up being one of our favorites of the tour. Once again folks know the words, which knocks us out no less than it did the last few shows. A pair of musicians introduce themselves and tell us their band is working on a cover of “Food For Hornets” (!!!!). Our UK friends Graham and Andy, who we had met earlier that year in New York City at our show with Bad Moves, are in the audience, and it’s an absolute joy to see them. York feels like home.
Soundtrack: Orange Juice, The Who, P.P. Arnold, The Kinks
December 12 – Liverpool, UK
Wherein I try to be normal about playing a show in Liverpool.
I can remember literally every detail about the first time I wanted to learn guitar, to form a band to make music. I was 13 and listening to the radio in my parents’ car. A song I’d never heard before came on, a pocket symphony of ghostly cellos and violins sawing away in high drama beneath a lyric of dense, arresting poetry: “Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been / Lives in a dream.” That was all it took. I needed to know EVERYTHING about this song, this band, this sonic world that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and was instantly the only thing that mattered. Two decades later and I’m tuning my Epiphone Casino (a guitar chosen because Paul McCartney played one) and checking my Vox amps (chosen because the Beatles used them) in a DIY club behind a pizza restaurant in Liverpool, England, entirely because I happened to hear that song, that day, when I was in eighth grade. I doubt more than a few days have gone by in the last 20 years that I didn’t daydream about playing a show in Liverpool. And here we were.
The audience—a handful of Perennial fans and the friends and family of the two excellent opening bands, The Tusks and Idyllic—are incredibly welcoming and supportive, as is Ian, the venue’s raconteur of a soundperson. I’m sure they have little doubt that we’re hopeless Beatlemaniacs, but however tiresome that probably gets at times for Liverpudlians, they graciously embrace us and our nerdy enthusiasm, even when I check my amps with a quick few bars of “Paperback Writer.” An audience-wide call for an encore is further underlined when an audience member kindly points out: “You came all this way, didn’t you? Might as well play some more.” We were more than happy to.
The folks at Outpost, the evening’s venue, are fabulous, as is the vegetarian pepperoni pizzas
that Chelsey and I both devour before making our exit. That evening we stroll down Matthew Street, home to the Cavern Club—where the Beatles cut their teeth playing endless, sweat-soaked gigs—and thus a quarter-mile side street that has taken on the status of myth and magic in my mind. Our gear packed away, our hearts full, we make our way into The Grapes, a pub made famous as the late-night, post-gig haunt of the young Fab Four. A Christmas party is in progress, folks dressed to the nines and singing karaoke as loud as they can belt. The holidays are in the air, and it’s enchanting. We find a quiet table in the back of the pub and reflect on the evening, all giddy disbelief and knowing smiles. We toast the night and our good fortune and the city of Liverpool—both the town we’ve dreamed about and the very real metropolis that has shown us such a lovely evening—and head back out into a crisp midnight. The next day I’ll walk along the Mersey with the image of the four young Liverpudlians who changed my entire world, who got me to this city on this day, looking out onto that river and dreaming.
Soundtrack: we’ll give you one guess.
December 13 – Manchester, UK
From one legendary music city to another.
New Order, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Magazine. It’s hard to imagine making indie rock in the 21st century without one or another of these bands finding their way into how you make your specific kind of noise. So it’s to the sounds of Power Corruption & Lies that we make our way into Manchester. We pass stunning modernist university buildings, all brutalist angles and minimalist glasswork. There is an avant-garde quality that I’ve always associated with Manchester (probably thanks to how much I connect Manchester and post-punk), and the city seems to match this aesthetic, even if it’s just in my mind. A short drive from Liverpool means time for record shopping, and we once again jump in with both feet. I stock up on Northern Soul compilations, including a Decca double-LP comp on orange vinyl that had been at the very top of my UK record shopping list. Ceej picks up a Best of 2024 compilation assembled and pressed by Piccadilly Records, the Manchester shop where we spend most of our pre-load-in hour—a very cool concept entirely new to me.
That night’s show is at Star & Garter, a punk club that just happened to be next to what I can only assume was the single largest EDM festival in the history of electricity: traffic stretching bumper to bumper as far as the eye can see and every inch of driving space jealously snatched up. Parking quickly becomes a tense ordeal. Luckily we are rescued by our friends in Sumos and Park Safely who are once again sharing the bill with us and help us unload the van as we finally figure out a place to stash the vehicle for the evening. The show itself is great. This time I spend the bridge of “Up-tight” standing on a six-inch wide windowsill, hoping the plywood two-by-four nailed across the upper panel is enough to hold my weight as I cling to it with my non-microphone hand. Chelsey and Ceej are absolutely on fire, a week’s worth of show feeding into their precision, their energy, the way they simply attack these songs.
The next day’s show—an afternoon in-store—is back in London, so we’re back on Priceline, looking for something about halfway along the four-hour drive. What we come up with is a Shakespeare-themed inn in Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of the Immortal Bard. The desk clerk, certainly more accustomed to middle-aged Macbeth buffs than the world’s sweatiest guitarist in a rumpled striped shirt, is only mildly curious as to why we’re showing up at 2:30 AM But in the end we have our keys, we have our hotel room, we sleep as much as we can, and dream about driving on the left side of the road.
Soundtrack: New Order, Northern Soul compilation, Stereolab, Mod compilation, The Kinks
December 14 – London, UK (afternoon) / Brighton, UK (evening)
The last day of tour is a sprint at the end of a marathon: two shows in two cities nearly two hours apart. The first is at Dash The Henge, an exceptionally cool record shop in South London. The store, humble in size but huge in energy, is just about packed for our 3 PM show. Many in the audience are familiar faces from our first London show a week earlier. An incredibly enthusiastic group of art school students who had attended that gig not only show up to Dash The Henge, but will also make the trek to see us in Brighton for a Cupboard Music-curated festival later that evening. It’s the sort of thing we’ll still be talking about a decade from now. Our set, at this point honed to something truly sharp and feral, feels particularly wild in this tight space, with the (utterly wonderful) audience right on top of us and the absolutely lovely record store staff only encouraging us to further recklessness as Chelsey swings her mic, as I scrape my guitar across the side of a bin of used LPs. We have just enough time to sign some records and buy some junk food (more Cadbury chocolate for Ceej and Peanut Butter Kit-Kat bars for me, along with a sleeve of delicious coconut-flavored butter cookies) before we dive in the van for our drive back to Brighton.
A hopelessly-devoted student of all things mod, Brighton looms large: the site of several legendary Who and Jam shows, the setting of Quadrophenia (the classic film and the 1973 Who concept double-LP), and the backdrop to several Mods vs Rockers melees, Brighton is still associated enough with mod culture to support a dedicated shop, Modfather. So when I warm up my amp with a few bars of “I Can’t Explain,” it’s a tip of the cap. My Maximum R&B sweatshirt meets with vocal approval as we make our way up to the second-floor theater space. Before we take the stage we have the absolute pleasure of taking in a set from the brilliant Josaleigh Pollet, an American singer-songwriter who is coincidentally booked for the very same all-day show with which we were closing out our tour. Josaleigh’s set is breathtaking.
Then it’s our turn. Our new friends from London have arrived. We tear into this, our last set of tour, all three of us boasting our own individual pulled muscles, sore backs, scratched-up voices, gnarled fingertips, but all the happier for it. Chelsey positively throws herself into the crowd at every opportunity. Ceej batters their snare drum relentlessly. I climb onto the mantel of a fireplace that has probably seen two centuries. Whatever’s left of us is there to be spent and so that’s just what we do.
Our flight back to Boston is only eight hours away; too soon for a hotel stay with a 90-minute drive to Heathrow still looming. So we eventually get what sleep we can at the departure gate and on the plane, all three of us in a fuzzy haze as we cross back over the Atlantic. We don’t say much, but we don’t need to either. It had been the best week Perennial had ever experienced. We had met people we’d never forget. We’d done something we always promised ourselves we’d do, and it was so much more beautiful than we could have possibly hoped. Eventually the ocean gave way to the rocky edges of Massachusetts, to the grey dawn outline of Boston, to the flat, bayside expanse of Logan Airport. I looked forward to landing, but honestly, I really looked forward to taking off again
Soundtrack: The James Taylor Quartet, The Jam, The Kinks, The Who
