Basschat on Tour! Tell us your stories of being on the road?

[Al Krow]

Something I've never done, but would have loved to! 

 

What about you guys? What are your stories of being on the road, the highs, the lows and the in-betweens? When did you go and how did it end? What have you got coming up?

 

Pics always welcome!

[Len_derby]

Nice one AL. I’ll get us rolling.

My time ‘on the road’ didn’t last long. I quickly realised I didn’t have the resilience and passion necessary. Bearing in mind this was the late seventies, the things that did it for me were; poor quality food at inconvenient/unhealthy times, uncomfortable travel and bad sleeping arrangements. I did about six months and then bottled-out for a career in engineering. After that I was happy to keep music as a hobby. For me, the T&Cs of music as a full-time weren’t worth it. I do admire all those who have what it takes to do it. 
Ironically, later in my career in chemical engineering I ended-up working overseas on various projects. However, I did have a company Gold Amex card and my own choice of hotels.

 

A mate of mine always says, if the life of a touring musician was promoted as a punishment Amnesty International would be all over it.

[Lozz196]

My experience of my first tour was the same Len, was early 90s for me, reinforced my thoughts that music was my hobby, something I did for fun, and didn’t want it as a job.

 

I did a few European tours with Knock Off from 2015 - 19. Aside from the fact that the tours imo were poorly organised, being centred more around which town centre we could walk around all day than being based upon making the gigging as easy as possible I didn’t find it too bad. Again the organisation of finishing a gig then driving 3hrs to the next hotel I found a bind, especially when seeing other bands drive 20mins to their hotels. Was a big factor in me leaving.

[mcnach]

Not a lot of 'touring', mostly just stints of maybe 4 days at a time travelling in a converted 17-seater minibus... and that got boring very rapidly. With not much to do, lots of waiting around, and usually free beer... I started understanding why many of the bands I followed as a kid had stories of drugs and general debauchery. Probably just to keep from going insane. 

I guess it can be more interesting when you wake up in Paris one day and Rome the next, rather than driving from Nuneaton to Kidderminster, then Folkestone, back to Coventry and run to Newcastle. Sleeping arrangements varied from Travelodge style hotels to somebody's floor/sofa or the van.

 

When the minibus beshiteth on us and broke down (several times) it added an extra layer of crap. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it was a great experience... but not one I need to repeat, unless the £££ level is an order of magnitude larger.

 

 

[jezzaboy]

Putting up with a (mostly) bunch of tw*ts for a week or more? No thanks! 

 

It takes me all my time to hang about with the band for a pub gig.

Edited 8 hours ago by jezzaboy

[SimonK]

What happens on tour stays on tour...

 

I did a full year on the road over 97/98 with a charity/fund raising/gospel band linked to https://www.mercyships.org.uk  mainly in Europe but also South Africa and Ghana. It was fun especially for an 18/19 year old. Started off as a roadie/sound engineer but then got promoted to bass. Learned a few things:

 

1) No amount of hard work/practice will put you in the same league as naturally talented pro musicians with a good ear (and when you find them just play what they tell you)

2) Gear breaks/goes missing all the time so the simplest set up that ideally someone else has paid for works best

3) Make good use of caffeine especially if you are voluntold to drive the van

4) Music is a fun hobby but too much hard work for not enough reward to do full time

 

 

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by SimonK

[Lozz196]

On a Knock Off tour, we played in Antwerp, Belgium.

 

First off when we drove through the area where our hotel was we saw some rather mean looking people on guard duty at various properties, complete with machine guns. Turned out we were staying in the diamond district. Hence said machine guns.
 

At the gig itself, at about 9:45 when we were nearing the end of the set this chap in a police uniform (later found out he was the Antwerp Chief of Police) got up on stage and started speaking/shouting at me. Now my Flemish isn’t that good, as in don’t speak a word of it, but I could tell from his tone of voice, expression, and hand hovering near his right hip he didn’t want an autograph. So we stopped playing. Our singer had the hump  and went to have it out with him but I just said it’s the first night of the tour and said policeman has a gun so don’t Fosters him off.

 

Turns out the venue had a 10pm curfew, and after a chat with the owners the Chief allowed us back on til 10pm. We didn’t ask him which song he wanted, miserable so & so!

Edited 7 hours ago by Lozz196

[chris_b]

Touring, like everything else to do with bands, is what you make it.

 

There are always ups and downs, but if you're serious about playing in a band, think you've got something for an audience and if you've chosen the right guys, you'll make it work. As Charlie Watts said when the Stones were celebrating their 25th anniversary, "5 years playing and 20 years hanging around!"

 

IMO the end justifies the means. 8 hours driving to a gig and 8 hours driving back again depends on the gig. A good gig and it's worth it. A bad gig and you put it behind you and look forwards to the next one. If you can't do that become an accountant etc.

[terryj]

Traveling up to Glasgow from Birmingham for a gig being the daft boys we were we had stopped and bought pea shooters and the dried peas to go with them, probably don't exist any more, but on the M6 we started shooting peas at lorries we passed only to get pulled by the police and charged with " discharging a missile on the queen's highway" got away with it but needless to say it didn't happen again.

[BigRedX]

These days unless your band is pretty well known and has record label or management financial backing, most "tours" are a series of weekend gigs spread out over a month or so.

 

I did two conventional tour with The Terrortones organised by someone who wanted to be our manager. The weekend gigs were fine although we could have probably organised them all ourselves and got the same result. The mid-week gigs not so good. One of the tours was supporting a German Rockabilly band who despite being excellent were completely unknown in the UK. Apart from the last gig on a Saturday night where The Meteors also played and which was packed, the only people in the audience for the other gigs had come specifically to see us. For the other tour, we were supposed to have a decent local band in a compatible genre as support for each gig, however the support bands were either non-existent or had zero following which pretty much defeated the object of having them. Needless to say we told the organiser of the tours that we didn't required his management services. Also it was hardly a Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle. We drove home each night after playing apart from one weekend where we had three gigs in South Wales and stayed at Mr Venom's parents house.

[Cuzzie]

Does being a Roadman count?

[tegs07]

1 hour ago, Cuzzie said:

Does being a Roadman count?

Ah so it’s you in the balaclava doing wheelies on your Sur-Ron.