Tief in Marcellos Schuld

I drive a big blue van for a living.

When I quit my last “proper” job it was a bit of a task trying to explain to my future ex co-workers what exactly it was I was quitting my exciting life of managing consumer complaints to pursue. To people who have barely any knowledge of the music industry beyond the CD selection at Tesco and The X-Factor, trying to get across the concept that small bands a) exist, b) tour and c) need transportation to do so was about as easy as trying to explain to them the concept of skacore.

“You know Madness? And The Specials? And Green Day and Blink 182? Yeah, well… not really anything like any of those bands.” It’s alien to a lot of people who exist outside of a certain section of society, and that’s fine. A lot of bands don’t value it as a service (”you want paying a decent wage for sitting on your arse and driving a bit? Our budget is £20 a day, take it or leave it.”) but those who do truly make doing this worthwhile, because whilst it can be incredibly rewarding and provide incredible memories, ultimately it’s a largely thankless task with numerous drawbacks .

You’re basically on tour but without any of the real fun of “being on tour.” Drinking and drugs is a generally bad idea since you have to be ready to drive to and from venues each night. Crucially, it’s often pretty likely you’ll be stuck in close confines for an extended period of time with a group of people you don’t know. Those people will have their pre existing in jokes and idiosyncrasies, and sometimes it can be an isolating affair trying to endear yourself to a group of people you just can’t click with. You can make some friends for life, or you can spend weeks longing for the sweet release of death to free you from your self imposed prison sentence. It’s a 24/7 job, you don’t get to go home. Unless the tour hits your hometown, in which case you do. Always good. This became all too apparent during a week and a half run in November 2015, during which I went through just about the full range of emotions. Anger, depression… Well, I guess mainly just those 2. One of the first things a band I haven’t worked with before will ask me is something along the lines of: “Have you ever driven someone you haven’t gotten along with?” And my answer is generally to launch into a muted tirade about this particular tour. It becomes apparent each and every time I start talking about it that not only was this the worst tour i’ve ever been a part of in my 10+ years of touring, but it was a consistent stream of aggravations and issues from day 1 right until after the tour had ended. This tour made me want to go back to listening to people complain for 8 hours a day. This tour honestly made me consider driving the van and its occupants off of a cliff, multiple times. I hated this tour. And so now I guess for whatever reason, I’m going to write about it to the best of my recollections. Some disclaimers: 1) I am not a reliable narrator. At all. My memory is awful. Whilst everything i’ll write about happened in one form or another, i may get slight details wrong. My bad. 2) I’m not going to name any of the artists featured on this tour. Once we’re into it, a bit of googling can probably give you the answers you’re after. I have no long lasting malice towards anyone i’ll be writing about, and i’m honestly not really that fussed about them reading this. I doubt they even remember me.

3) The touring party included 2 acoustic singer/songwriters from Australia, and a band from England. For the purposes of this blog, they will henceforth be referred to as Aussie 1, Aussie 2, Brit 1, Brit 2, Brit 3 and Brit 4. Imaginative, i know.

4) If I were to pinpoint the primary reason for this particular tour being so incredibly unpleasant, I would place the blame on the booker responsible for arranging and routing the tour. Again, not going to name names, but it was an absolute shambles and I feel a lot of the shitty behaviour from the touring party can be traced back to his subpar work in advancing this run.

Now that that’s out of the way…

If your interest has been piqued, then give this blog a follow and await the first thrilling installment of this series of unfortunate events in which the van dies, plans are changed and first impressions are made. Or don’t. I just have to get this off my chest.