Tuesday, 21st January – O-Town arrived in the UK and were greeted by fans at the airport. Poor Ashley had apparently lost his luggage, so it was lucky that Sash of the UK Promo Crew (an IO BNO) was on hand to pass on a package to him from Puk, an IO message board member from the Far East. Puk had sent Ashley some T-shirts – one of which he wore later in the week. Sash also managed to get Ashley to write a birthday card for Puk’s 22nd birthday – what a great early birthday present!

While the guys settled into the UK, Ashley was interviewed by Rick Fulton of the Scottish national paper, the Daily Record, for a feature that appeared on Thursday morning.

Wednesday 22nd January – On Wednesday, the guys popped into BMG to leave a message on the official UK website’s message board. The site’s administrator, Lady M, posted pictures of the guys taken on Wednesday and you can check them out in the gallery section of www.o-townmusic.co.uk. Click here and here to see photographs of Ashley wearing the T-shirt that our very own Puk gave him!

Wednesday was also a day of pre-recording interviews for local radio to ensure that O-Town would be heard on stations up and down the country in the run-up to the release of “These Are The Days” on February 3. A stop-off at MTV was also on the agenda, where the guys talked about, amongst other things, working with Nelly.

Thursday 23rd January – On Thursday, the guys did an interview with Popworld (which was aired on Sunday, 2nd February). Amongst other things, they took part in a contest to see how much they knew about music, and Dan (in a feature entitled “Coming Clean…”) divulged that he had taught his little brother swear words when he was younger.

Later in the day, the guys travelled to the BBC studios for various interviews. A live appearance on CBBC’s Exchange show featured the guys talking about “These Are The Days,” Britney Spears and their favourite Christmas presents. After Trevor told us that he’d received the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD and Ashley talked about snowboarding with his brother in Northern California, it was time for Erik-Michael to take part in a challenge. If he managed to find 5 “O” shaped objects in the studio, part of the video for “These Are The Days” would be played. Erik (the "champion") as he was named by the other guys) was successful!

After Ashley (somewhat unsuccessfully) tried to introduce the next programme after Exchange (suspicions abound that he really didn’t understand anything that he was being told to say…truly Britain and the States are countries divided by a common language!) the guys moved on to Top of the Pops. Inside O-Town member, and Vice-President of the official UK promo crew, Sash was there and tells us what the experience was like:

“There were about 12 different artists appearing on the show, but the only one I was excited about was O-Town. It had been almost a year since I had last seen O-Town perform in the UK. The fact that the performance would be less than 5 minutes did not deter me, I just needed to see and hear them again. And I wanted to show them that I still supported them! I got a tip from a cameraman about which stage O-Town would perform on so I quickly made my way to the front of the stage when it was time. It was great to see guys fighting for a spot to get a glimpse of O-Town too. The floor manager gave the audience a pep talk advising them when to scream, cheer, clap, etc.

“And give it up for O-Town!" the floor manager announced over the mic. I applauded and cheered as loud as I could. Trevor, Jacob, Dan, Erik and Ashley ran onto the stage to a very welcoming crowd. They started off with a quick sound-check where only Jacob sung as the rest of the guys' arpieces were playing up. After a few technical hitches O-Town was ready to perform. Jacob sang the first line and the crowd cheered/screamed. Even though the floor manager told us to do this, I don’t think many of us needed any prompting. Each time a band member sang their line they got a great response. Those of us who knew the lyrics sang, swayed and danced to the song. O-Town rocked – they seemed to really enjoy performing “These Are The Days”.