ROK
As a professional tour driver / sometime tour manager, I get to see Tap-esque moments on pretty much a daily basis. I've seen limbs broken, hard drugs taken, hotel rooms trashed, virginity (s)stolen, bands break-up, then reform, then break-up, then reform again, & entire tours get cancelled for the most needless of reasons. And I've only done this for 2 years!

In my current inebriation I've tried racking my brain in remembering the most Spinal Tap-esque moments and have come up with 3:

1) This may be a 'I guess you should've been there' situation, but picture the scene. I've just pulled up outside a hotel in Winterthur, Switzerland. The band have just checked out and are loading their luggage into the van. One of the hotel staff walks out hurriedly with a concerned look on her face. "Hello, er.. I was just checking when you were going to pay for the mini-bar bill."

"What mini-bar bill?" quoffs the vocalist and general business-minded guy of the band.
"You took a few items from the mini-bar last night?" she asks.

"No we didn't, did we?" He asks, turning to the rest of the band. Each one in turn replies 'no' or 'nuh-uh' (they're American). Apart from one bassist who sheepishly makes his way to the reception.

(Whispers) "Yeah, I err.. took i think one bottle of orange juice. I'll just head back up and put it back."

"No, there's no need," insists the reception staff. "You can give to us here."
"No, it's ok - I don't mind, I'll just go upstairs and put it back."
The reception staff then insist he give it to them right there, right then. So, turning a crimson red, he reaches into his bag and pulls out a bottle of orange juice. Then a bottle of water. Then a bottle of beer. And another 3 bottles of beer. Then another bottle of water, then a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white wine, 2 bottles of coke, 2 bottles of lemonade, a bottle of apple juice and a bag of peanuts."

The smiles adorning the faces of the hotel staff quickly turn into stiffled giggles. "And did you not take a packet of pretzels as well?"

"Yeah, but I already ate those"

I and the hotel staff splurt into immediate bouts of laughter as he quickly zips up his bag and grumpily walks to the bus outside. Quality.

2) Some time last summer I was asked to drive an extreme metal band on tour (seriously, these guys were on the same label as Napalm Death!). Incidentally the same week they were touring France, there was a nationwide arts and music festival going on and the small French coastal town of Pornichet (where they had their next gig) was doing its bit in the form of a week-long music festival throughout the whole town. The band I was driving was down to play as the token rock act in the main square, as part of the celebrations.

As I drive through the sun-baked cobbled streets, past blissed-out trip-hop DJs to the main square we start to wonder whether this crowd will be overly receptive to their subversive grind-core attack. Surrounded by quaint French cafes, parents sipping on after-dinner chardonnays while their children dance playfully to the reggae-ska beats emanating from the modest stage, the petrified looks adorning the faces of the band was priceless.

"Have they even heard us," asks the vocalist sweat dripping feverishly from his brow. Subsequent enquiries reveal that, in fact, no they haven't. Apart from the promoter that is. But he's not here yet.
Incidentally, they played a blinder of a set and were even urged to give an encore!

3) After a successful gig with a couple of stoner bands in Bristol we head to a good friend of ours' pad nearby to smoke, drink jagermeister and crash out. As we're getting out stuff from the van and heading into the flat a strange, disturbingly talkative Asian chap appears out of the shadows and starts asking us all the usual questions about who we are, where we played, how his mate's uncle used to play in some obscure punk band in the 80s etc, etc... 'yeah, yeah whatever', we think to ourselves. The band politely answer his questions while hoping to God he'd kindly fuck off back to the squalid hell-hole he'd come from.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes or so he does. Only to return about 30 minutes later knocking on the door of the flat. "Oh. Hi..." says George who owns the flat, nervously inviting him in. As he comes down to the main room we discover he'd brought us some of his mum's home-made goat (that is, REAL LIFE goat) gepatti. And weed. Nice one. We offer him some Jagermeister in return.

"Well... I don't really drink mate, what is it?"

"Truth syrum," offers a guitarist in the shadows.

"Ah ok.. I'll have some." He takes a shot. Then, another. We all laugh as this previously teetotal and annoyingly talkative asian chap comes to life. 8 shots are taken in total. We wait in anticipation. Anyone who knows Jagermeister knows of the 30 minute rule, as in the time it takes for Jager to truly take affect. Soon enough, this Asian chap just can't stop talking! He's telling us about his trip to Pakistan last year.. we're getting bored very quickly. Just as we start ignoring him and talking amongst ourselves he starts telling us about this one time when he got in a taxi in Pakistan and the taxi driver took him down a dirt-path short cut. He thought the taxi driver was going to rob him, so he decided to get him first - took his knife out, slit the taxi driver's throat, stole all his money, set fire to the taxi then went on his way.

Deathly silence. Eyes wide open. Mouths agape.

"So, how much you wanna give me for that weed," he asks.

Um...
(BeardyMat, Fri 30 Jun 2006, 23:30, Reply)