On the Road Again, part 2

Get in the Van Before it Breaks Down Again

by Chris M.

We’d been trying to book a show in Athens GA for around 3 years with no luck, it was a huge college town and everyone kept telling us that we were missing. I’d called, emailed, and basically begged for a chance to get even a week night show…nothing. Then, one day our other guitarist calls me up to say that we were just offered a Saturday show at the biggest venue in town. A few weeks later we’re about 2 hours into our drive when we hear a strange noise from the van…”we’ll check it out later”, I thought. Nope. We hear what sounds like a gunshot and pieces of tire shoot out across the highway. We pull over and find that our spare has either fallen off or was stolen, but never mind that, even if we had one, our jack is busted so we’re out of luck. A few hours pass and we finally convince someone to help us out. We buy a new spare and we’re on our way. We get to the venue late to see that it’s a ghost town. Then it finally registers, this is a college town and its late June. No wonder we got the date, everyone had gone home for summer. Anyway, we play our set for the 4 people and the club owner hands us roughly $12. We get to the parking lot and find out that we have a headlight out. There goes our $12. After a small delay we’re back on the road. An hour or so passes and we hear another strange noise. Boom! The remaining 3 tires blow at the same time and we’re sent scraping in the railing. We pay a tow truck $150 to drive us 4 exits up to get dropped off in the Walmart parking lot to wait another 5 hours for them to open. Another $250 and 4 new tires later we’re back on our way. We never played Athens again.

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