Back for a short Christmas tour, The Paddingtons, Hull’s indie rock outfit once signed to Alan McGee’s Poptones record label, are already talking up this tour as a play-maker for what could happen in 2021 if things go well.  Returning to Stockton’s Ku, and full of praise for Jimmy Beck, drummer Grant Dobbs tells Damian Robinson that they can’t wait to get out and play. 

Hi Grant, how did the tour come about?

We all live in different parts of the world at the minute, so it’s hard to get us all together, but we tend to be back in Hull around Christmas time.  We were asked to play a one off at the Aldephi venue in Hull, which has become a charity now, so we all agreed to that straight away.  Then once word got out some old promoters got in touch to see if we wanted to do more shows.

So the four that you have announced could creep up to more shows?

No, I don’t think so, it’s hard enough to get everyone in the same postcode at the minute, but maybe next year, who knows, we’re talking about doing new music, but we all have to see what we can do and what can happen.  Where once it used to be music all the time we now have families and other non-music activities.

How come Stockton ended up being one of the four places you’re playing on the tour?

Teeside’s always been a good place to play and Jimmy Beck always booked us right from the start of us playing, so whenever Jimmy hears about us playing he’s always on the phone and we’ve ended up playing Stockton and Middlesbrough a bunch of times.  Teeside’s always like a second home to us and we’re really happy to get to play their again.  Jimmy’ll be a big part of the night, good old Jimmy the Jukebox.

What kind of set are you looking at?

As it’s near Christmas, we’ll keep the set to what people know and what they’ve heard in the past.  We do have a few new tracks but mostly we want to create a party kind of atmosphere.  What’s nice is that people who come and watch us are probably the people who came to see us the first time round, or new people who thought they’d never get to see us

Could we see more new shows and new music next year?

We’ll see.  After what’s going on we’re like most people and want to get out and play music, and also be punters and enjoy music.  We want to get out and play next year, we already have offers, but it depends on how much we bugger up this tour first I guess.

The Paddingtons play Stockon Ku on 21 December