Tour Stories

I am sure that many of you here have had the joy and misfortune of touring, so why not share some of your stories/experiences with us?

I'll get it started.

I'm not sure of the year, but it would have been in the 90's. The band I was singing for got a gig headlining a beach festival in northern Ontario. The promoters promised a crowd of 5000 people - minimum, so we were all really excited and nervous to be playing in front of so many people. I think our biggest crowd up until then was maybe 300 people.

The band all meet at the drummers place early Saturday morning. We loaded our gear and began the drive north. We arrived in the small town the festival was taking place in but were not sure where exactly the show was taking place along the beach…we were stopped by Ontario Provincial Police who came to the driver's window and said - " are you Phoenix? (We were called Phoenix before a name change) we all blurted out YES!!! and laughed our asses off because the cop goes on to tell us the show has been relocated and he will escort us to the new site. We are a bunch of nobodies getting a police escort!

The cop takes us out of town to a wooded area. He stops his car and got out and came to the driver's window again. He said this is as far as I can go - keep on this road until you see a large clearing - that is your site.

We drove a little bit and came upon a large clearing that had a massive stage set up and a bunch of hard looking bikers everywhere. We stopped the van and got out to make sure this was the right spot. It was. The promoters f'd up and didn't get the proper permits for the beach and had to move the show. As it turned out the land that the show was now going to take place on was owned by Satan's Choice - a biker gang. There were bikers everywhere and there was also pot plants growing just about everywhere you stepped. No wonder the cops wouldn't take us in…

In the end the show sucked. The promoter only came up with half our money and there was only about 200 people in attendance. But… We did get a police escort…lol

Best I can do is mention me picking the lads up in my works van to go to the practice room. Pretty uneventful really.




Had my headlights on when I dropped them back off…







…which was nice

Now THAT'S Rock-n-Roll!!!!!