Murderball

It’s amazing when everything goes off without a hitch, especially when there are nine of you traveling around together in one van for weeks on end. I can’t quite remember even one day, on any tour, that didn’t involve some sort of problem. Okay, the van is broken again. Okay, we’ve circled this town seven times and we don’t think the venue exists. Okay, we’re all out of cigarettes and I think someone pissed in this Gatorade bottle by my pillow. What the fuck.

So we’ve all got our favorite moments – most of which stem from all these little hang-ups. It’s the unexpected that always ends up making the night- or even the whole tour, unforgettable.

We were in Austria and experienced something of a big hang-up. We had a few days off in a row and nowhere to stay. We’d bounced from place to place over the course of a music festival in the same town, and then found ourselves packed up and waiting for news on any place that would let us crash for the next couple nights. We mostly received blank stares and shrugging shoulders. We were in Pöllau, a tiny town about 60 kilometers northeast of Graz, in the middle of a giant nature park. So, we weren’t exactly really close to a big city with cheap hostels or hotels. We’d made a few friends in the group of people who’d put on the music festival, and they were all working to find us a place to stay.

As evening drew near and the prospect of squeezing into our Sprinter van to sleep seemed our only option, one of the festival’s workers, a Goddess among women named Nadja, gave us good news that she’d found us a place to stay in the neighboring town. It looked like we were set to camp out in an elementary school gym! Suddenly what had seemed like the worst hang-up became this ridiculously strong source of childish excitement in all of us. We knew there would be wrestling mats and balls of every size, basketball courts and a playground. We knew there would be drinking. We were ecstatic. We felt even prouder when we’d heard that the town’s mayor had to give us permission to stay there! How special were we?!

For two nights we stayed, inventing games (“Murderball”), drinking, testing the strength of every piece of playground equipment, drinking, exploring the dead quiet neighborhood… it seemed like a total treat to have spent days off in such an untraditional way (i.e. not just passed out and bored to the point of self-mutilation).

On the second night, a bunch of the festival workers showed up, young and full of muscle, ready to challenge us wee Americans to a dodgeball tournament. I played referee, sort of, but mostly I tried to protect my beer. We lost terribly. The guys in our band ran around wildly, saying, “What the FUCK – are you seeing this? AW, COME OOONNN!” while the Austrians just plowed them. Everything you’ve heard about Austrians is true. They are ruthless, cunning and strong… they must train in the hills from the time they can walk. They killed us mercilessly for six games until finally we gave up, and breathlessly headed outside to smoke, of course.

I was most bummed to leave that town than any other place we’ve stayed in our tours. There was just something more refreshing about being given a pretty shitty deal and have it turn out an awesome experience instead, rather than do the usual and curl up bored in a Murderball-less hotel.

Meagan Christy (Trumpet)
Chase Long Beach
November 2009

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