Are We A Bus? The Inside Story Of Life On The Road, Part 12

‘Round the Bend

When you’re traveling about with a load of sometimes-strangers, people often find it necessary to go as far as marking up bunks with their names. If you don’t leave belongings in there to indicate that it’s taken, it’s not unknown start climbing into your bunk only to find someone else in there already. I remember one tour where I chose a bunk but didn’t really mark my territory; sure enough, I discovered someone in there. I was shown another bunk, but to my extreme surprise, the Front of House guy tried to join me in the middle of the night because he had in fact already been sleeping in it for the past few nights I had just joined the bus that day and he certainly wasn’t expecting to find me there. Since no one seemed to know which bunks were actually free, I had to wait until everyone was in bed, after which I was forced to haul  a load of bags out from one bunk so I could finally go to sleep. Seriously, it shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?

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After the minor delivery hiccups of the first few days, the rest of the tour proves to be plain sailing with the merchandise. The fans are buying, the stall is busy, and everyone is happy. I’ve settled into a routine and am managing to balance the work versus partying nicely. It has become clear that this is a crew who take day-off-eves very seriously. Tonight we’re having a Big Lebowski party. The aisle in between the bunks upstairs has a laminated floor that continues into the back lounge. David, the guitar tech, has taken some water bottles and put different-coloured electricians’ tape around them, in order to make them look like skittles. The venue’s runner (our personal shopper) purchased a selection of squeaky, plastic balls from a pet shop; they’ve been filled with water and sealed with gaff tape to make bowling balls.

Robin, the other guitar tech, is currently gaff-taping rope lighting along the aisle to create an alley, so the balls can only go within the contained area and not underneath the bunks. I’m in charge of marking spots on the floor to place the skittles on, and a line to stand behind so everybody is throwing the same distance. The skittles are going to be placed in the lounge, which luckily does not have a table so we all just lift up our feet when someone is bowling — in theory, anyway. I can’t wait to see how well that works with thirteen people trying to squeeze into the lounge.

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Some people have actually gone to town and bought outfits from charity shops: Rick, the monitor guy, sports purple velour flares and a trackie top. Leo, the bassist, dons a satin dressing gown and nothing else (we’re all praying he’s at least left his underwear on!)A few of us are just wearing pyjamas, and after awhile we’re  all swapping clothes. At one point, we get the bright idea of trying to see how many people can fit in Rick’s stretchy velour trousers at once. With no small amount of effort, we manage to successfully get one person in each leg. The entire ridiculous episode leaves us all rolling around in stitches — especially when one of trouser-wearers loses their balance and takes out the three people stood around them. These are the times when touring is really worth it; nothing terribly wrong is going on, and there’s no harmful debauchery. Just lots of people coming together and getting on and having a party, night after night. I love it!

In the morning, we arrive at the hotel and I plan to go straight up to my room to sleep off all the fun. Most of us haven’t yet been to sleep, so I simply walk into the five star lobby in my pyjamas, armed with my suitcase, rucksack, and about three carrier bags of random stuff I have pulled from my bunk.. My mascara’s been smudged for hours and I am chewing furiously. My eyes have taken on a focus that can only described as a “fairly dazed stare.” My belongings are all spilling out of the bags, causing the handle of one carrier to rip open. I suppose if I’d had a hand free I’d  happily be walking in with my cocktail, too. We are quite literally spilling into the lobby from the bus like a right bunch of bandits, but I reckon that this can only help to speed up the check-in. They will never refuse to take you, but they will try and get you up to your rooms as quickly as possible, all the while eagerly encouraging you to use room service. I am sure they see a lot of this — I’m always doing it — and when you’re booking dozens of rooms, no business is bad business for the hotel, you know?

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It seems that not everyone is going to go straight to bed and I can see that some of the guys are doing some MDMA just after checking in. Not very discreetly, I might add, and they look to be heading straight over to the hotel bar. There are only four or five of them but they are getting a bit too raucous so they are soon politely being asked to go up to their rooms. I think the staff are hoping they will go outside, but they don’t seem to be in the mood for going out amongst the masses just yet.

They all go up Richard’s room (he’s one of the lampies) and they hang out there for a while. Now, I personally wasn’t there but I hear that they all had to pay about £200 in damages for the room when they left. Goodness. Apparently they were bouncing on the bed, which I do all the time, but have to say at least I weigh less than ten stone. They were (allegedly) all jumping up and down at once and something in the mattress went, or maybe the base of the bed, and it broke irreparably, sending a couple of them flying. Someone landed on one of the bedside cabinets and it immediately collapsed sending the table lamp crashing, too. Needless to say the poor lamp didn’t make the fall unharmed, either.

I know from experience that moments like these often go one of two ways. The first is that everyone is shocked into sobriety, and a mass clear up begins. You do your best to patch up the mess you’ve created, and a like a dodgy landlord painting over mildew, you don’t care if it’s merely superficial. As long as you can get out of there without it looking too bad, you don’t care if they later find that you gaff-taped inside the remote that you dropped and shattered, or that you used both the Gideon’s bible and the book of Mormon to prop up the bed because you broke one of the legs, or that the mini bar has been skilfully stocked with water as a result of you refilling the spirits bottles in record time before the time limit was up to charge you.

The second way is, quite obviously, the polar opposite. The momentum takes hold and even though you never planned to be a rock-and-roll cliché, you become one almost immediately. You might grab a pillow and start whacking the person next to you; they in turn take one to retaliate, and before you know it everyone is rolling around wrestling on the floor, the bed, up the wall. You continue to swing even though you can’t really see and more things get knocked over, drinks go flying, iPod docks and laptops take suicidal leaps that in the morning someone will sorely regret. But at the time you don’t care; someone starts racking lines out in the bathroom that are a good three or four inches long, much bigger than those earlier in the evening where there are more people around and you’re easing yourself into the night.

People might go out to the ice machine and come back with a couple of nymphs in hotel dressing gowns to join in the bacchanalian fun — the more the merrier. I remember once I was so drunk and had ‘noticed’ that below my ribs one side seemed bruised, and to stick out further than the other. I decided to share my concerns with everyone and before I knew it, I was lifting my top midway to show them. I was knelt on the bed at the time, and one of the guys came up behind me to judge whether my concerns were valid. He was only feeling below my ribs but obviously it looked really rude. I started to laugh and bent over forward and then regained my composure and straightened by back again. We stayed like this for a few minutes because people started taking pictures, and we thought it was funny, so we stayed like that laughing for a bit. Someone in the corner had actually taken so many that if you flicked through the album quickly it actually looked like we were dry humping, or mimicking it at any rate!

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A few days later we were on all on a private jet together and people were comparing photos, and the damning evidence of that night started doing the rounds. He came across the pictures of our little pairing and the colour drained from his face. We all know that it was completely platonic fun and that we were just messing around, but with the current trend of chronicling your life on social media sites…let’s just say if his wife would have seen them, he would probably be in the divorce courts by now. He kept telling everyone, including me, “Seriously, don’t put them on face book, and don’t put them on Facebook.” As if I wanted them on there anyway! It was hardly doing me any favours either.

Anyway, I digress. So, whilst some of the crew are driving the hotel staff around the bend, I am going to be a good girl and chill out in my room, sleep, and check out on time in the morning. There’s a first time for everything, or so I hear!

Bee
My blog follows the escapades of me, Bee, rock 'n' roll adventurer and swag girl as I travel the world assisting Tour Managers and selling merchandise for various bands. My fellow travellers include the band, the crew, the fans and various industry types. It lifts the lid on the myths surrounding the music biz and gives you a glimpse into that magical, filthy world. This makes what the kids in Skins get up to merely aspirational! My crew is older, but comically we're not yet wiser, and all of Europe is our playground. Are We a Bus?