The first longest drive & journey on my first U.S. Tour 2005 (PT. 1)
I was on a tour with my band at the time and another L.A. band (there were about 10 of us in a 10 passager van) and we had to get from Olympia, Washington to Salt Lake City, Utah for a show the next night. It was just about midnight when we left Olympia and drove into the night. We had just played a house show in someone’s side-yard (pretty much adjacent to the street with no fence) and the cops were called because of the noise. I think the other band only got three songs into their set when it ended. I remember having a sore throat, a cough, and was very much not looking forward to driving nonstop until our next show but still extremely excited about being on tour. I spent half the night literally rolled up under a seat bench (so I could somehow try and stretch my legs out and sleep), wrapped in a hoodie with clothes around me, listening to my CD player with a record on repeat (over the big bumps it would skip). But as sick as I felt as we drove, there was an incredible feeling and experience I got from it and was able to share it with these people. There’s a feeling you can’t quite explain...a weird love/dislike. Almost a strange addiction that develops from being on the road and especially the moments of the feeling of being half asleep in a seat and waking up to the sunrise somewhere (it was Idaho)… Seeing nothing but a beaming sun hitting the window slowly coming up, the heat of summer slowly rising in the car, yellow grass fields for miles, the hum of the van radio and some people quietly talking in the front seats - either trying to keep the driver awake or just plain wired up on Coffee. From all of it there’s a kind of comfort and calm feeling.
By the time we got to SLC it was about 6pm and my throat glands were about the size of golf balls and this had been the most painful sore throat I had ever gotten. I had been slowly loosing my voice and ended up having to go straight to the hospital as soon as we got there so I could get medicine for it.
Unfortunately I had to cancel this show. To this date it marks the only show I’ve ever had to cancel for health reasons and aside from this show I have only ever cancelled one other show (that was agreed upon by a booker) to date.
(…To be continued)
Tips:
- Drive times, lining up dates, routing:
When planning a tour, if you’re first starting out, I’d suggest to try and route tour dates to not have to drive more than 6 hours on a show date.
Here’s why: depending on how many people you’re on tour with, you most likely went to bed after 1am and usually the latest check out time of a hotel or motel is about 11am or noon. Even if you're stay with friends, family or other bands lot of people have work the next morning...so odds is you'll need to get in the morning and leave enough time for everyone to get ready. By the time you get ready, stop for gas, grab coffee and food - an hour will go by. Then when you add the gas, bathroom and food stops (at least add another hour). Then add another hour if there’s traffic or a time change (of course there are exceptions!) but this brings you to 7 or 8pm which is a typical load-in time. Everyone has their own way of doing things and sometimes you make things work (the radio show at 10am, driving a few hours after your show to cut down on drive time). Planning ahead of around 6 hours drive time like this could be less stressful especially as you get into long tours, sleep will become very important as well as having enough time for everything with bigger groups of people.
