Barbara FG
Audio By Carbonatix
This week is shaping up to be the kind that bands and their publicists dream about when they’re slugging it out on the road or compiling lists of music journalists’ emails.
Midlake, a folk-rock group from Denton, is releasing its first live double album, Live at Roundhouse, on Saturday for National Record Store Day. They’ll perform a special set on its release date at Good Records in Dallas.
Just in time for that performance, the group got a shoutout from a hit TV show. On last Wednesday’s episode of Ted Lasso, when the AFC Richmond team spent a night trying to let off some steam in Amsterdam, one of the band’s shirts showed up in a crucial moment during the episode.
“Right when it released, we started getting all types of messages,” says guitarist and singer Eric Pulido. “It’s nice to see so many folks coming out of the woodwork who were fans. We were humbled and excited.”
The live album recorded at Roundhouse in London is one whole show of the band’s new and classic tunes from the end of a U.K. tour last year. The band planned to put together some tracks from various gigs, but the final show in London hit all the high notes in the right places.
“It was the biggest audience, and the venue was just beautiful at the Roundhouse, which is a historic spot to play right by Camden,” Pulido says. “Just having fans who have become friends over the years and the folks we worked with, it was just really neat. It’s palpable when you’re over there.”
Midlake has been traveling between the U.S. and the U.K. for the last 20 years. The group’s first trip abroad in 2003 brought them to England for a record deal, and they started to build a second audience of fans including some notable names like comedian Ricky Gervais.
“When we played there, we were opening for other bands,” Pulido says. “So it was a great way to introduce our music to an audience, but we would also hub out of London and go play shows in and around the U.K. and come back to London because our label had a flat we could stay at or a hostel.”
Jason Sudeikis gives his players a night off in Amsterdam following a tough preseason loss in the third season of the Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso.
Apple TV+ Press
Apparently, actor James Lance, who plays journalist Trent Crimm (formerly of The Independent), is a fan as well. Pulido says they spotted him at a show in England, and he stopped by to greet the guys and buy a tour shirt.
“He bought a shirt at the show and we met him afterwards because a lot of times, we’ll go out and greet folks and sign autographs,” Pulido says. “Sure enough, he bought a shirt, and we didn’t put two and two together. We said, ‘Man, that guy looks familiar.’ He took about 10 steps away and we said, ‘That’s Trent Crimm!'”
Pulido says Lance called the group as they were shooting last week’s episode, titled “Sunflowers,” to ask if he could wear the shirt in one of its pivotal scenes in which the unusually objective Crimm finally lets himself open up to the camera. We won’t go into details beyond that because as Coach Lasso taught us, “Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.”
“He contacted us about the show and kind of kept in contact and sure enough, he said he wore the shirt and if they kept it in, it would be a really powerful moment,” Pulido says. “It has a connotation that Trent Crimm is a fan of Midlake.”
As if the week isn’t already great enough, now they get to come back to their other home turf and celebrate their successes with the fans who helped launch them to their global status.
“We’re excited to release this because it’s a celebration of all these years,” Pulido says. “We love being home and back at our local record store putting out an album on Record Store Day. It’s good to have that bridge between our home and our second home in London.”
