Best time of my entire life.

I had to pleasure to do 12 national tours with two bands.

Never made a dime, but always broke even. Met people I will never forget as long as I live.

I literally peaked at 24. My wife doesn't think this is so funny, but sadly, it's true.

Ike

i basically agree with ike, sort of, except that in addition to being fantastic, it also sucks

i voted not crap

don't ever go on tour with drunken slackers.

i like my bed and my life. crap.

I've been lucky to have toured with funny and intelligent people - I can't imagine being stuck in a van for days on end with a bunch of dullards.

Never thought of making money, but enjoyed the weird and wonderful wide world I live in. Met a ton of interesting people. Broke out of a few comfort zones. Slept in some cat piss.

I have to say emphatically NOT CRAP, and I'm ready to do it again.

I'd just like to say that if you're coming back from two weeks out playing and you've been up for 30 hours and drunk and played a show and hungover and awake and fried and driving for the last 8 hours, when you arrive home and go and get a tattoo that will take about one hundred and fifty minutes to perform, it really only hurts for about the last thirty.
Just a word to the wise.


Touring is total crap, but, then again you get to be on tour.

Playing to ten people in Denver on a Monday night just because you can?

Not Crap.


I think there's room for one of these:


Gas every 6 hours: $50.00

Random minor breakdown that makes you late for/miss a show: $175.00

Springing for a motel room to sleep five: $37.50

Furrowing brows across the country as you open for their favorite bands: Priceless.

I particularly like the Mid-Tour Peak Performance Spike, where the band have settled into telepathic mode (man) and the shows are getting better and better but before you get dog tired and want to start throwing each other out of windows. There's a few shows right in the middle of longer tours which are invariably the best shows you ever do.
You never forget the great bits There are crapola bits aplenty, but I'd do some tours I've done again in a heartbeat.

N/C.

i'm gonna say CRAP. my current band is planning a very short tour this summer, and i think this one will be my last attempt at touring if our luck is as bad as my past band's was. the things i hate:

-weekday shows (usually) suck and are hard to find
-house shows (usually) suck
-the van always breaks down
-current gas prices

i've also grown bitter about the way bands treat their vans as disposable. i wouldn't want to be stuck wit the burden of paying for a van and just driving the hell out of it for 2 weeks, then ditching it.

I like waking up on some strange floor in some strange town with some strange dog licking my face. Not for everyone I guess.

My favorite thing about being on tour is the absolute freedom you have from the routines and obligations of your normal life. The ONLY thing you have to worry about is getting to the next show and playing it. That's it. NOT CRAP.

Getting home from a long tour and not knowing what the fuck to do with your time for about a week is CRAP, though. It's like constant cabin fever, even when you're not at home.

Chas.

Seaside Lounge wrote: The ONLY thing you have to worry about is getting to the next show and playing it. That's it. NOT CRAP.

That's exactly how I see it. best thing I've ever done, in spite of falling into a sinking pit of depression after returning. The best is when you tour with the best of company. Our friends/support were so amazingly wonderful and I think that really made the low points of no one at the shows and the growing maw of debt bearable because morale was high. The high points were that much better because there were these unbelieveable people to enjoy it with that you never thought you'd travel 1/3 a way across the planet and meet.

So Not Crap.
'

Faiz

So not crap it's not even funny.

I got back from my first tour ever about a month ago; I leave for my next one in a month. One of the most educational, hilarious, frustrating, invigorating, exhausting, infuriating, interesting things I've ever done.

And house shows are the best, homie. We got paid better at a girl's birthday party than we did at a shitty venue where we played with nine other bands.