Band Van Stories / Woes

[Truckstop]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1333538078' post='1603054']
There was one time my band rented a C-20 (Chevy's 'Transit') from Rent-A-Wreck to go do a weekend of rehearsals up in the mountains in the middle of Pennsylvania. Me and the singer got back approx. one month later with the van on a trailer, all the windows busted out, every panel bent and even some bullet holes in it. Long story.
[/quote]



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Truckstop

[dmccombe7]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1333538078' post='1603054']
There was one time my band rented a C-20 (Chevy's 'Transit') from Rent-A-Wreck to go do a weekend of rehearsals up in the mountains in the middle of Pennsylvania. Me and the singer got back approx. one month later with the van on a trailer, all the windows busted out, every panel bent and even some bullet holes in it. Long story.
[/quote]

Were there guys with Banjo's
Was it a Deliverance van


Edit :- Sorry Truckstop beat me to it.


We once drove back from Peebles to Motherwell across country during a snow blizzard in a transit that was engine over-heating, no heating working and the no way to demist the windows. Took a while but the old girl made it eventually. Old Mk1 Transit. No mobiles in them days either to call fro help.

Dave

Edited April 4, 2012 by dmccombe7

[Spike Vincent]

No Tales of Interest really,but having a drummer in the band who ran a chain of cake shops did give us some interesting things to throw out of the windows at people.

[joeystrange]

During one two week tour in my old band our van broke/lost parts of the exhaust three times (that happened fairly often).

One show was at Newcastle Academy. The exhaust had already broken and been fixed that day so we were already running late when the fan belt broke. After waiting for a repair guy to show up we called the headliners and their manager drove 45 mins from the venue to fetch us after they'd loaded in. Oddly enough their van had broken down on the first night of the tour so they had a replacement van which was smaller than the first so we had the drums and bass amp in our van. We finally got to the venue ten minutes before doors, got the gear on stage so the headliners could do a quick soundcheck then the openers went on.
I remember a guy that we didn't like very much came to most of the gigs on that tour. One night he gave us a bottle of brandy which we drank most of and topped up with piss with the intention of giving it back to him. Our manager either forgot or didn't know this and gave it to the guy that came with a new fan belt. Poor guy.

To top it off we managed to get a puncture as we were leaving the car park after the last gig. It was a fun tour though!

Over time I don't think there was anything that didn't go wrong with that van.

[MarkG3]

There were a few times when my band had just started out, none of us could drive and we had a gig that was only us playing so we needed transport - luckily we had all our own gear PA included. Our drummers brother at the time had a sprinter and drove us so we lugged all the gear in the back. All was good until I was locked in the back in the pitch black for the entire journey with all the gear moving around and only a bungee chord to hold onto Was really funny and as the guitarist and drummer + drummers brother could hear me they decided to go round a roundabout for about 5 minutes

Then on the trip home the band got locked in the back and drove around which was a laugh!

Another time which I can't even remember why but I ended up in the boot with the bass drum and toms on top of me with my face pressed up against the back window. I did get some funny looks from the drivers behind

[Toddy]

Ha, thanks guys,,, you've done me proud,, almost forgot how many times we ran out of Diesel,,,luckily looks like the sprinter will live again,,, we dont need the air con pump anyway,, ha,,if we get to wales will post a pic to prove it and thanks for making me feel a bit brighter...

[Doddy]

I've done a bunch of journeys while sleeping in the back of van on top of the gear....that's one reason why I
have a sleeping bag and pillow in my car-you get to the meeting point and find that someone has to go in the
back,at least you can be warm.
I used to hire a van all the time with one band,where I had to do all the driving. I've run out of diesel at 4am
within 5 miles of home-a big problem when every petrol station in town closes at 10pm and doesn't open until
8am. I've was bombing down middle lane of the A74(M) at about 10am after stopping over after a gig in Kirkcaldy
and going to an afternoon gig in Burnley (I think),when the rear tyre blew up....not fun.
I once did a gig in Bolton where we unloaded the van and as I was locking the back doors the key snapped clean
in half.I had to call someone to go to the garage for the spare key and bring it up to us.
One band I was in used to travel in one car with all the gear in a trailer-we had some fun there. We once blew
two tyres on the trailer on one gig and ended up driving back from Kent at 40mph because we'd already used the spare
earlier that day. We came back from a gig at the French Grand Prix and went to fill up with LPG at the garage in Dover
when the nosel got stuck in the car.The AA came and couldn't get it out so they called the fire brigade and shut down the
petrol station for an hour or so,while me and the drummer got a coffee and sat on the sea front,tired but pissing ourselves
laughing.

[thisnameistaken]

Oh had another one where we played a uni bar in Gettysburgh, the student union had arranged accommodation for us which we assumed was on campus but was actually at a motel a couple of miles away. By the time we found this out we'd all been drinking and were facing the prospect of driving through this town we didn't know in the wee hours. I was with my girlfriend in her 4x4 and she'd already lost her license the year before when she refused a breath test so she insisted that I drive, despite my not having a license and not being legally resident in the USA.

Not proud of it but I did drive. I asked our trumpet player to wait for me to get out of the car park so I could follow him (he was sober), but he forgot, so I ended up driving around Gettysburgh for ages trying to find this place, and in the end out of frustration (constantly ending up in left-turn lanes when I was on the right road) I cut off an unmarked police car rather than turning.

Of course he pulled me over and I didn't have a license to show him, and I came up with the idea of faking a New Jersey accent and pretending to be my housemate, whose date of birth I didn't know so that sort of fell through. While I'm talking to the cop on the sidewalk there's a river of foam flowing past us as my girlfriend dumps a 20oz cup full of Bass ale out of the truck, somehow he didn't notice that, I told him the only reason I was driving was because my girlfriend had been drinking. Anyway I think the cop himself was drunk because he was trying to smoke but kept dropping the cigarette he was trying to light while talking to me, and in the end he said we could go so long as my girlfriend was driving!!! Just before we set off a squad car pulled up behind him and he said to the other cop 'Do you want a no-license?', the other cop looked me up and down and said 'Nah!'.

So off we went, quite relieved, got to the motel and got very drunk, and ended up sleeping in our cars when we got thrown out of the motel in the early hours when a bunch of people in our party had a fight in the corridor and broke one of the room doors down. :/

I do miss that band.

[seashell]

This is a brilliant thread. There are some fantastic stories on here. I am lost in admiration. And slightly scared.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1333540221' post='1603137']
Were there guys with Banjo's
Was it a Deliverance van [/quote]



OK so we rented this van, as I said from 'Rent-A-Wreck', and it didn't disappoint. Heater didn't work, fuel gauge didn't work, stereo didn't work, bodywork covered in dings, but it drove and it was cheap so we took it, and it was the butt of many jokes for the whole weekend.

We were staying at our singer and guitarist's grandma's house up a mountain near Shamokin Dam, PA. Their grandpa had serious dementia and would basically howl all day and his wife would howl back 'Almond!' - his name was Almond! - 'Almond! Shut up already!'. So it was a pretty weird weekend anyway. But they had a massive garage to cater for a collection of old '50s Chrsylers and it was ideal for rehearsals. It was January and it was snowy and very cold.

Anyway, the last night we decided to drive out to the nearest town for some drinking, so we took the van to Herndon and visited the Herndon House, wherein the owner recognised my accent and insisted I sat with him at the bar sampling every beer he had while the rest of the band joined in the karaoke with the rest of the local rednecks. As the bar was closing we got a couple of six packs to go, and a couple of takeaway pizzas (the place also did pizza) and got in the van, all in quite a silly mood, and quite drunk.

The drive home was very silly - our singer was driving and he was a real hoon, chasing rabbits through ploughed fields, braking and reversing to try to take a second swing at a skunk he'd missed (missed it again) and knocking down road signs as he blundered along these mountain roads - just to see if Rent-A-Wreck would even notice the additional damage he'd done to their van. Of course eventually he came across a road sign that was a little too far off the road, and from the driver's seat he couldn't see what a steep slope it was, whereas from the passenger seat I could. He drove off the road, the van lurched, he cut the wheel back the other way and that tipped it - the van rolled. I think we did two or three rolls, ended up in a stream, nobody was wearing seatbelts - the truck ended up on the drivers' side with me in the driving seat and James somewhere in the back with everybody else, the two six packs of beer and the two takeaway pizzas, which had now decorated the entire interior of van.

We all managed to get out of the van safely through the windscreen because all of the doors had jammed shut, and the only two injuries were a bump on the head for our trumpet player and a cut thumb for our singer, so the only issue we had was the destroyed van lying in a stream on its side. James called some of his redneck friends who were back at the Herndon House and they came to drive us home, but not before entertaining themselves by shooting at the wreck of the van and throwing beer bottles at it, and one of them had a relative with a recovery truck who was called out to retrieve the van before the cops came across it.

So we got away with it, but someone had to stay in PA with the van until the insurance company decided what we should do with it, so me and the singer stayed there for a month with Almond howling morning, noon and night, and nothing to do but inflate tractor inner tubes and ride them down the slopes all day. In the end we took the van back to NJ on a trailer, and could've lost it again in Bay Head harbour when we crossed a bridge that we were about two tons too heavy for, which would've been the icing on the cake but sadly was not to be. We did manage to scrape the roof taking it through a drive-through bank though.

And no we didn't get the deposit back.

[Truckstop]

\m/

[Toddy]

Thisnameistaken, I have no idea who you are,, but you are officially my new hero.....

[thisnameistaken]

I was just a passenger for most of what happened in that band. Like the time we got banned from the Denny's chain of restaurants, the time we sank our friend's fishing boat, and the time we lost a summer-long residency because our tenor player tore a steel door off an ice machine and beat the DJ's bike to death with it. Etc. It's funny to think I was only in that band for about a year.

The next band I joined had lost their previous bassist to a sad accident with a bottle of nitrous oxide, and twice I got stranded at parties when they all left and I couldn't get home because I didn't know where I lived. Each time I had a friendly soul drive me around the following day until I saw a street I recognised and could figure out where my house was. Difficult to explain but funny that it happened twice.

[Norris]

[quote name='Benplaysbass' timestamp='1333530340' post='1602827']
Transit van all the way, back bone of Britain so they say. Never had any problem that couldn't be fixed or bodged on the quick to get me where I'm going.
[/quote]

Coming back from a gig in Nottingham back in the 80s, the Transit was nearly out of petrol - we were always skint, so it never had much fuel in it. We pulled into the services at about 1am and put the usual tenner's worth in. Once everybody had returned from visiting the loo ... the van wouldn't start. The engine just turned over and over, but wouldn't fire. We checked fuel and spark - they were ok, but the van still wasn't going anywhere. Eventually the AA turned up and spent about an hour trying various things, still the van wouldn't start. It was about 3am when the recovery truck turned up and winched us aboard.

A few days later the drummer had stripped down the engine to find a holed piston. How the van made it to the services is still a mystery.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Norris

[mrtcat]

When I was 16 I was the youngest in a rhythm blues rock band in Plymouth. Singer was a bus driver for a living and had a minibus that kept breaking down. He'd bought it from the bus company he worked for. We had a gig in Exeter one weekend and when he and the drummer turned up at my parents house to pick me up they were in a double decker bus. Turns out his van had broken down and he'd borrowed the bus from work. We were on the A38 nr Newton abbot before the police pulled us over. Seems he had borrowed without asking and his company saw that as theft - go figure. My old man was mighty hacked off when I called him to come get me from the back of a police car. Never made it to the gig and the singer got arrested then sacked the following monday morning. Singer went on to be a train driver. Don't think their so easy to nick tho.

[Jazzneck]

Bedford Dormobile - piddling into a leaky radiator at 2am to keep things cool enough to get home, running out of fuel at the top of a long 1:15 hill and coasting down to the garage at the bottom only to overshoot due to faded brakes and having to push the loaded bugger back to the pumps uphill.
We eventually had it serviced and, next gig, going downhill on the A40 at Denham a sparkling plug blew out (stripped thread, bloody mechanics). Refitted the plug using the silver paper from a Kit-Kat bar and the beastie got us to the Ricky Tick Brixton and back to Bucks with no further problem.
We had a great time and many laughs with that van; I could go on, but I won't.

[thisnameistaken]

Wazzing in your van's radiator must be a low.

[Jazzneck]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1333707104' post='1605468']
Wazzing in your van's radiator must be a low.
[/quote]
Absolute low and it stank, too.
Needs must and we did get home.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Jazzneck

[BT!]

We ran out of fuel on what appeared to be the steepest hill in edinburgh last tour.

So our driver says get out and push it into a side street. Up this step hill. Which has what are basically cobbles.

Needless to say with the four of us pushing we didnt get far. Managed to get it to a car park then ventured 2 miles for petrol.

Not fun.

Anyone christen their vans with any good names? Ours is called halen obviously

[pete.young]

[quote name='BT!' timestamp='1334621546' post='1618852']


Anyone christen their vans with any good names? Ours is called halen obviously
[/quote]

Some friends of mine had a sick Transit, which was called Gloria Monday.

[ThomBassmonkey]

We were on the way home from a gig once when we had a blowout. Not fun in a camper (not of the VW variety) so we pulled over. The blow out was driver's side so we didn't fancy changing it at the side of the M1 and called out the AA.

To keep ourselves entertained, we decided to ring a friend who had been out and pulled. Him being the classy act he is answered the phone, when we asked what he was up to, he told us "I'm in bed with some bird". We then did the obvious thing and asked him to put her on the phone so we could sing her a song.

We also had to pull over under a bridge on the M1 again after our singer had been drinking. He can't go more than 3 minutes without a pee when he's drunk so we just pulled in there for ease. Him and the drummer hopped out. Queue 5 minutes of hearing them yell "don't cross the streams" at each other, then when they got back in, we wondered what had taken so long so looked out and the singer had managed to pee almost the entire length of the bridge. He must have a bladder that takes up about half his body.

The singer in JWP is a great guy, very funny but not much common sense sometimes (though he is very smart). One time we were going on tour on the cheap so bought a load of supernoodles before we went on the road and took a camping stove with us. I was in the venue with the gear when he brought up the food which tasted AWFUL. Turns out he'd used a rusty tyre iron to stir it with.

[Jazzneck]

Different van and a little later to Post #41, we now had a ladida Transit with BAC 111 seats .
We were giving a drunken mate a lift home after the gig when we were pulled in by the police on the A41.
Three policemen arrive at the passenger side, we open the window...
PC no1, "Beat group, eh?"
Guitarist, "Yeah!"
PC no2, " Everyone out, we're searching you for drugs."
Drunken Mate, "F**k off you fascist b*stards and go and have a w*nk somewhere else" .
Three band members and the roadie promptly wish they were wearing brown trousers and desperately tried to distance themselves from the Drunken Mate .
PC no3 sticks his head through the door, peers into the smoke filled gloom of the van and asks, "Is that you Mick, you prat?"
Turns out that Drunken Mate and PC no3 are brothers!!!!!!!
Phew - got away with it and arrived home an hour later still shaking.
Who needs mates like that?

Edited April 17, 2012 by Jazzneck

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='Jazzneck' timestamp='1333711298' post='1605537']
Absolute low and it stank, too.
Needs must and we did get home.
[/quote]

people are looking me as I

[Toddy]

hey hey Guys,,,some amazing stories , just an update on the OP,, bless she did us proud and made it to Wales for the weekend,, will load some pics when time,, the old thing is currently holding her own and covering approx 600 miles a week on gigging duties,,, good ol sprinter...

[umcoo]

We used to have an old LDV that was bright yellow. Always tried to get it to 88mph (Back to the Future style), and only managed it once.
Most things were held on with rope and gaffa tape and we were always being pulled over by the police. Best one was when we went to T in the Park and got all the way there and most of the way back, stopped at the services and the key had melted in the ignition so we were stuck in bonny Scotland. I think it was Johnstone services...great services! That was a long one.