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Travelling across the country with my best friends and playing shows all night? Not crap.

Thankfully my band tours in a mini-van from the mid-90s, so we save a pretty decent amount of money on gas.

We met some great people, and even the shitty shows are hilarious in retrospect.

But I could see how it would be total crap if you lost tons of money, you're van exploded, the drummer lost his arm, all your shows fell through, your keyboard player did too many drugs and attacked your former bass player. . . and then your band broke up.

I've been on two tours, one with my current band and one with my old one. On each one an attractive chick showed off her naked breasts to the band for no good reason. We didn't even ask.

For some reason this never happens to me when I'm back in Chicago.

NOT CRAP

oh my...very not crap.

my perspective may be a bit skewed since i've always had a job that gave me paid vacation and therefore *i* was never losing money, it would have been very worth it had that not been the case...

i have so many inside jokes, great stories, fond memories of each tour i've done...driving from the twin cities to twin falls idaho, which took two days only to show up at a skate park where the owner told us "yeah, the guy who put on this show decided not to promote it"...spending a full day in a porno store in akron ohio because it was the only place open on a sunday afternoon before the bar opened at 8pm...spending a night in akron ohio with some weird punk kids (who we later found out didnt even live in the damn house) who kept us up all night telling us that "chicago is for pussies" in between doing lines and threatening us....playing with a really strange performance art piece which involved a guy dressing up like jesus and then having his weirdo friends shoot him with a staple gun...oh my...

sure, at points it gets very tiresome...but it is amazing...and usually pretty smelly.

andyk.

Hey Anteater,
That EXACT same thing happened to a band I was in! Except it was from Grand Forks, ND to Twin Falls.

We ended up playing an office connected to a skatepark/warehouse to about 15 people, all of whom were covering their ears the whole time, and we then had to drive to Seattle that night.

OH, and I ate at Taco Time and had to use the restroom 15 times that day.

No shit!

Man these stories could go on forever.

sorry to be so crude,
ike


[quote="andteater"]oh my...very not crap.

i have so many inside jokes, great stories, fond memories of each tour i've done...driving from the twin cities to twin falls idaho, which took two days only to show up at a skate park where the owner told us "yeah, the guy who put on this show decided not to promote it"...

ike.

this must have been the same skate park. a few things i noticed about twin falls were that the subway sandwich shop (about a block down from the park) was very swanky...there was this really weird old man who was at our show [about 10 people showed up, and the show ended up being very fun] who was eventually given the nickname "control alt delete" because he looked like he was about to die (and this was around the same time as that paper chase album came out)

even more freaky is that after leaving that show, 5 of us immediately left for spokane, washington, as opposed to your seattle...spokane was another story...ahha...

another great time: played a house show at some gutterpunk house in portland, oregon. the punks went nuts running around while we played and at a point i jumped up, my guitar over my head and the neck hit a cieling fan that was on, i lost control of my guitar, it swung out and hit this guy in the face and gave him a bloody nose...after the show this guy runs up to me and tells me "FUCK YEAHHHHHHH! YOU GAVE ME A BLOODY NOSE!!!!!!!YOU FUCKING ROCK!!!"

andyk

Ike wrote:Hey Anteater,
That EXACT same thing happened to a band I was in! Except it was from Grand Forks, ND to Twin Falls.

We ended up playing an office connected to a skatepark/warehouse to about 15 people, all of whom were covering their ears the whole time, and we then had to drive to Seattle that night.

OH, and I ate at Taco Time and had to use the restroom 15 times that day.

No shit!

Man these stories could go on forever.

sorry to be so crude,
ike

andteater wrote:oh my...very not crap.

i have so many inside jokes, great stories, fond memories of each tour i've done...driving from the twin cities to twin falls idaho, which took two days only to show up at a skate park where the owner told us "yeah, the guy who put on this show decided not to promote it"...

Even though I've had to deal with some pretty ridiculous situations on tour (ah, you know), but the highs cancel out any lows: NOT CRAP.

I wouldn't trade touring for anything.

Add touring overseas as a variable and man, you're really living the life...

I have spent about 10 years touring, mostly around Australia but also the UK, Japan, Hong kong and the USA. I have no idea how many tours all up I have done.
Definitely NOT CRAP, but also definitely CRAP aswell. The lack of sleep, the lack of comfort, the lack of good food, the lack of a steady girl friend... we all know it.
But like everyone else it seems, I wouldn't trade those times for anything, except maybe a steady girl friend....

What else can I say?

Touring Japan is the best, if you can do it, do it. Totally awesome.

Hong Kong frikkin rocks!

UK sucks..... der! Except for Wales and Scotland, and the Tate Modern and Saatchi Gallery. hmm

The US, frikkin weird! We were driven around by Billy Gould, he took us to every homestyle Mexican restaurant on the west coast I swear. Texas.... what the fuck?????

Australia, its home.

I love it. I miss it. Not crap.

tallchris wrote: your keyboard player did too many drugs and attacked your former bass player. . . ant then your band broke up.

Bwa ha ha! Chris, is there something you're not telling me? Did Richy and Brian tell you we're breaking up?

The only CRAP thing about touring is that it's tough to do it very much and keep a steady job. I pretty much have to quit my job every time I leave for tour and look for a new one when I come back. I came back from tour two months ago, and I'm STILL LOOKING FOR A FUCKING JOB.

CRAP!

Nah, this was more in reference to bands who go out, find they can't stand each other, and break up soon after tour.

The worst thing about touring is probably booking it yourself. It fucking blows.