A Day In The Life Of Terra Terra Terra

We were on our way to the big time… or so we thought. We had finally gotten up the courage and the money to do our first semi-national tour. We were fresh out of high school and had high hopes and little knowledge of how the whole tour thing worked. We had booked over 30 dates from Florida to Nashville, Chicago, and St. Louis and so on. I remember being scared out of my mind. After all, I was the so-called “leader” and I had no idea of what was going to happen. I had heard terrible stories of bands on tour and all their misfortunes- like getting held at gunpoint, or shelling out thousands of dollars to fix their van. One of my other fears was that maybe we’d get to the venue and no one there would know who we were. Part of me wishes I could tell you an epic fail like that but our worst tour story is a little different.

It was the Forth of July and we were in North Carolina playing at a Battle of the Bands that night (we lost). It was at a venue that a friend of a friend hooked up for us. We got there a couple of hours early, sweaty and exhausted from the hours of travel. We set our stuff up, played, hung out, tore everything down and left. It was a typical show.

On the way out it was decided that we were going to Waffle House with the band that won the competition that night. They were okay guys and said they liked our music so we went with them. We had a good time, talked about music, and forty waffles later, we were ready to go. They had a two-hour drive home. We, on the other hand, needed to be in Nashville the next day. So we said our goodbyes and went on our way.

What I haven’t mentioned is that everyone but our bass player had the usual breakfast food. Instead, he had some weird stew that looked like it could have been used as a torture device in Operation Desert Storm. It must have been good, though, because he had three bowls. And that is where it got fun.

We hopped in the van, ready for our all night drive. Our drummer was driving, lead guitarist in the passenger seat, bass player behind the driver, and me beside him. About three hours later I woke up to two things. The guys in the front had obviously become delusional from the drive because they were blasting Celine Dion and singing along to her greatest hits. The other thing I noticed was a really weird smell. But I pushed it out of my head and decided to go back to sleep.

Before I could fall back to sleep, I heard our bass player tell the guys that whenever they found the next gas station to pull in. [Looking back, the way he said it did not tell us in any way that he was feeling sick.] Five minutes later the van was filled with a horrible smell. I looked over and our bass player is puking into his hands right next to me! I yelled at the driver and told him to pull over. When our bass player got out of the van all the puke that was in his hands flew all over me and the rest of the guys in the van!

We all started to freak out and we jumped out of the van dry heaving. We all hate puke and if anyone would have seen us on the side of the road that night, dry heaving our brains out, they probably would have thought we had some crazy new disease.

Our bass player disappeared in the woods for a good half an hour and then came back. It was pitch-black and the van was a mess. We knew we had to get to a gas station ASAP. When we got to the gas station our bass player went to the restroom and continued puking.

The rest of us had to decide how we were going to clean up the mess. If any of us got close to it we began to get sick as well. Finally our drummer decided to make a deal. He said, “If I clean up the mess, I don’t want to drive for the rest of the tour.” We immediately agreed and he began to clean. It took him about an hour to clean it up and I think he threw up more than our bass player did but he got the van clean again.

We were only five days into our tour and for the rest of the time, three things happened.
1. Our drummer didn’t drive the rest of the 20 days we had left.
2. The van smelled like puke no matter how many gallons of disinfectant we used.
3. We never ate Waffle House again.

Terra Terra Terra
October 2009

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