Mid to late 80's. Cover band doing 80's rock. We traveled the east coast club circuits, Florida to DC. We carried full production ( club sized ). 60 PAR can show on aluminum trussing, drum riser, 4 18" subs, mids, horns, stage gear etc.
We traveled in a fairly new model Dodge Caravan and carried the gear in an old 1964 24' cab over box truck. We would rotate shifts. Two in the equipment truck and the rest in the caravan. 5 band members and 2 on the crew.
It's sometime in the winter. We're heading out for a few weeks. First gig is Johnson City Tenn which normal drive time should've been only 2.5 hours from our home town. But factor in that old truck, the mountains and a possible winter storm moving into the area. The equipment truck left an hour or two ahead of the caravan which I was in. The plan was for it to get ahead of the storm and the van to catch up. We weren't scheduled for load in and sound check till noon the following day.
The van got a late start but made good time. Our light guy (sober) was driving while the rest of the van was let's say in a festive spirit. Around the half way point we started hitting the snow front that was forecasted. As luck would have it we were deep in the mountains, snow coming down so hard we could barely see the road and it had gotten dark. We made a brief pit stop to call home to see if the truck had checked in. We thought we should've seen them by now. No word form the truck. We piled back into the van with more party favors and continued our festivities.
An hour into it we're driving up a steep winding grade at about 35 mph with the snow pouring down. Roads are solid white. The driver (only one sober at this point but always the funniest guy around) says something like "Look at those poor guys! Should we stop?". They didn't appear distressed and we were in no shape for guests so we pressed on. A few minutes later the driver says "Hey wouldn't that be hilarious if it was the drummer and sound guy?" Then there were a few sudo re-enactments going on as you can imagine with a van full of comedians. As we drove on there was still no sign of the truck so we were certain it wasn't those guys.
Some time later and we finally arrive at the club but no truck! It was the weeee hours in the morning at this point. We find a pay phone and call home base again. Yeah, cell phones weren't accessible to the common man back then.
Turns out that they called in about two hours earlier to say that the truck had broke down. They had parked it in a restaurant's parking lot that was off of the road and had said that they seen us drive by them as they walked the road looking for a phone! D'oh! So we dropped some off at the hotel. The light guy drove myself and one other back down the mountain. "Comin down the Mountain" <insert Janes Addiction here>
So two hours later we make it to them. They had found an outside electrical outlet, grabbed extension cables out of the truck along with a hair dryer or two and used those to heat the cab of the truck. And yeah, they were a bit ticked to find out that we had driven by them earlier. Oops....
We decided to stay with the truck for the few hours of dark left, call a tow truck at day break and go from there. So the five of us get back into the van. There were 4 captains style seats and a bed in the back. Some one took the back and the rest of us wrapped up in whatever we had and reclined back in the seats. Seems like we didn't have enough fuel to run the van for heat so it got pretty damned cold.
Everyone was wrapped in their own cocoons, lying back in the captains chairs. The interior of the van on top of being really cold had a dark grey lighting effect coming from the parking lot lights barely illuminating the snow that covered everything. I remember waking just before day break and looking around at everyone. It looked like a scene from some scifi movie where the crew of a deep space exploration ship comes out of hibernation. Sure as hell felt like it as well.
"The Show Must Go On!" At day break we made it to a phone, called a tow truck and had it towed to the club. I remember the towe truck backing our truck up to the club's loading area and getting to work. Talk about miserable. Ice cold, ice all over everything including the loading ramps, no sleep, hung over etc. We knocked it out though. Crashed till show time and enjoyed the rest of the week.
Ah... Good times....
