As previously reported, CRADLE OF FILTH are currently on tour in Europe in support of their new album, Thornography. The latest in an ongoing series of tour updates can be found below:

Barcelona, Spain, Razzmatazz - November 23rd:

"Yesterday was fun once we eventually arrived in Barcelona after a hefty drive across the desert. The hotel was great, really stylish and with elegant rooms and free wireless internet access, which basically meant the lads in the band would be up all night wanking themselves raw (probably).

Not long after touchdown, (i.e a shower and a freshen up), the evening found most of us down in the hotel bar with the DEATHSTARS and friends, celebrating the tour and the subsequent day off in docile enough fashion. Bed was around three for some and half past seven for those who went swimming in the sea. After checking out of my hotel room an hour late (I blamed it on the time difference between here and Portugal), I met up with fellow girlfriend Sarah in the lobby and decided to lunch across the road with Dan. The three of us enjoyed quite a nice Spanish meal, just pointing at the menu to see what would eventually turn up, though obviously we knew the term for ice-cream and coffee.

The boys have a signing this afternoon, which is held in the old quarter at a specialist record store, so hence I say 'lads' as there isn't enough room to sit for seven to take the girls, so I get most of the information about it from the guys when they arrive back, flushed with the drive. From all accounts it was a busy one, the most noticeable moment being when Dani caught sight of a highly hilarious bootleg at the same time as attempting to swallow a mouthful of water and spat it out all over Charles, the signing desk and apparently some fans, whom he had to apologise to. This was a little over half an hour away so on their return it was hoped to go straight out for a meal but sound check was running really late due to some technical issues (it didn't happen until doors were supposed to open) so there was merely time to catch a snack down the road before returning for press and warming up. Strangely enough, and despite the previous late night out, everybody was in high spirits (I think Charles was due to his having finished reading his Hitler compendium), so the rush was met with enthusiasm and the show followed in the same vein.

Barcelona is always a great gig, tonight being no exception. The crowd and the band were both on top form and the atmosphere was electric. The whole show (minus the ramps and trees, which haven't been dragged out for any of these recent shows due to stage constraints) was aired and the fans went mental. I would definitely rate this show amongst the best of the tour for sheer energy alone and it is with Cheshire cat-wide grins that the band return to the dressing rooms in time to catch the culmination of an argument between management and the bus company (whom I strongly recommend that no-one in their right mind ever use again, seeing just how badly we've been treated by them, but more on this later). This is no more than a quick shouting match and no sooner than it has begun has it been forgotten, the night's victory requiring some alcoholic sustenance provided by the bar opposite.

Thankfully, by the time the majority of the band reach it, the amount of autograph-hungry fans has diminished in numbers to about fifty, so it's a pleasure to watch the band relax and take their time signing, as free drinks are dispersed and photos are are liberally taken. This little bar (I believe it's called Pepe's) is a familiar haunt of the band's, indeed I should think all bands that play the venue opposite end up here, as the signed merchandise on the wall proves testament to.

The Death Stars are hanging around already and appear to be drunk, several of them trying to get me laid in the toilets (but I think this just good ol' Swedish flirtation and take none of it too seriously, and besides, they're all great blokes and extremely fun to be around).

The party breaks up with bus call (God knows what time this is) and the last stragglers are waved goodbye to as the replacement bus is boarded once more and we disappear into the great unknown, all a tad tipsy and therefore all playing practical jokes on one another (like Sarah putting Dave's only clean pair of pants in the freezer compartment of the fridge and Dan filling her bunk full of pistachio nuts, only to have his boots receive the same treatment the following morning). The night wraps up in the early hours of the morning but at what time is anybody's guess. All I know is that i slide into my bunk, hitting my head on the wooden surround as I do so, to drown in the all-enveloping sleep of the damned.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another derrrrrr......

Gone."

Bergara, Spain, Club Jam - November 24th:

"Today was a relatively quiet affair, being far removed from the haunts of civilisation, or so we thought until we attempted to venture forth in search of valuable sustenance, failed and then relied upon the venue runner to drive us somewhere nice and homely. This was about seven o'clock, having spent the whole day idling about the backstage area, working on laptops and generally just attempting to survive the general doldrums.

When people think that life on the road must be all peaches and cream then they must have been listening to someone who rarely goes on it. Or someone very, very young and carefree, because today is, quite frankly, boring beyond belief. So boring that much of it is spent reading the numerable graffiti that adorns the dressing room walls (there's material/slander here from Cradle's first visit back in ninety eight!), culminating in Dani spraying the walls with a bigger, bolder C.O.F logo whilst the band are beginning the sound-check and subsequently filling the backstage full of toxicity.

The gig is good and the audience reasonable to say the least but there is a somewhat muted feel about today compared to that of the night before, despite the voracity of the set and some really great renditions. This may well be because people are tired after such a late night, maybe the tour blues are starting to really pervade the air or maybe it's just the grotty corridor wherein everybody huddles around the wireless router like it were some kind of Neolithic totem, whatever, there's a definite morbid presence in the air. It doesn't help to find out that the replacement bus has taken off without so much as a how-do, giving some members of the band no time in which to gather their valuables... therefore leaving personal detritus to the mercy of the driver successfully making a clean sweep. Inevitably clothing and trinkets get left behind, which only serves to thicken the crepuscular mood, i.e. piss people off big style.

This is somewhat alleviated by the late arrival of our original bus (in this far-flung part of Spain I really shouldn't make a joke about it's original E.T.A, but I can't resist) freshly back from having a week's worth of work done on it (the driver shelling out twenty thousand pounds worth of his own money to cover the extraction and refitting of the gearbox because the bus company - shame on them - doesn't have sufficient funds in it's account to immediately cover the expense). Everybody is enraptured by it's arrival, it's like Christmas come early. Or like returning home. We push through the throng of autograph-seekers to recover our previous bunks and all the luxury items left therein like relics of an elder race, the band eventually making it out to appease those fans still remaining outside.

Tomorrow is yet another day off as we journey all the way through to Milan in Italy, a journey totalling no less than eight hundred miles! That should give a girl plenty of beauty sleep.

And I'm not talking about Charles."

To read the previous tour updates go to this location.

Remaining dates on the tour are as follows:

December

4 - Live Music Hall in Köln, Germany
5 - Georg Eiser Halle in Munich, Germany
7 - Alte Reithalle in Dresden, Germany
8 - Progresje in Warsaw, Poland
10 - Markthalle Klosterwall in Hamburg, Germany
11 - Train in Aarhus, Denmark
12 - Rockefeller in Oslo, Norway
13 - Amager Bio in Copenhagen, Denmark
14 - Karen in Gotheborg, Sweden
16 - Antwerp, Belgium at Hof Ter Lo
17 - Manchester, UK at Academy**
18 - Birmingham, UK at Academy**
19 - London, UK at Astoria**

** with SABBAT