Ask touring bands what their favourite things about tour are and they'll probably lie and say something like 'everything is worth it for those 30/60/90 minutes on stage.' Those people are liars. The best thing about touring are the insane inside jokes you develop due to extended lengths of time spent sat in a confined space with other idiots who have decided this is the best way they can think of to spend their lives. The problem is, when this touring circus rolls into a whole new set of innocent, shielded people, the inside jokes don't exactly translate. So here are 5 classic examples of things that you won't find even remotely amusing.
5. Incessant MOOing
This is what inspired me to write this top 5 as it's something very fresh in my mind and I can recount the exact genesis and propagation of this total nonsense. It was on our most recent tour (as i'm writing this, tour finished yesterday and I'm currently on a ferry to pick up a band from Prague) and it all started with a pot of yoghurt and a few too many coffees. I know, rock n roll lifestyle or what? So we're playing a show at The Fulford Arms in York and we decide to nip out to the nearby Aldi to grab some snacks. As we're perusing the snack section, I'm totally drawn towards an obnoxiously sized personal yoghurt, the brand of which is 'MOO!' I'm feeling a bit nuts after a long day of sitting around drinking coffee and so I loudly announce to the supermarket that I'll be buying the MOOOOOOOOOOOO. This carries on at the checkout, it escalates to innocent shoppers leaving the store and it carries on throughout the van journey home. The next morning, I'm awoken by a video message from Jimmy which is simply him waking his poor sweet dog up by loudly and obnoxiously MOOOOOOOOOing at her. I then spend an entire journey to Glasgow MOOOOOOOOing whenever Jimmy looks like he's about to fall asleep and it goes so far as us encouraging the crowd at the gig later that evening to MOOOOO instead of applaud after every song. Again. I'm not saying it's funny. You shouldn't be laughing. What's wrong with us?
4. #GFY
We've been unfortunate enough over the years to tour in Germany with a ska punk band called La Familia. Terrible, beautiful people. I can't remember how it started, but every single exchange with any member of the band ended with 'go fuck yourself.' They graffiti'd bathroom stalls with poems dedicated to telling us to go fuck ourselves. They wrote a song called GFY. They won't leave us alone. Somehow, someone let them into England earlier in the year and they ended up playing a few shows with various friends of ours. So after the first show I receive a text message from a friend asking 'What did you guys do to upset a band called La Familia? They announced onstage that they hated you and that you should go fuck themselves.' Aachim (lead vocals/bass) was apparently even wearing an Eat Defeat hoodie whilst doing so, so this makes it even better. Anyway, fuck those guys. GFY.
3. The 'Eat Defeat' voice
If you've ever been a member of Eat Defeat or have filled in for us at any point (and quite a lot of people have, I counted 17 in total) then our impression of you is exactly the same. We developed it early on to mock an old guitarist who we kicked out (twice...) and the bullying has continued ever since. It's hard to describe the accent accurately, I think the closest example I can think of is, you know that bit in Spaced where Reece Shearsmith's character is mocking Tim and Mike and he says 'OH, A HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT', well it's kind of like that. There's been a few awkward incidents in the van when we have guests where they've clearly stated 'So and so doesn't sound like that at all, that's not a very good impression.' To them I say, well, something mean in a silly voice. This one doesn't really translate to print.
2. Dickhead Day
Ugh. I don't know when it started. I think it was pre-Steve, so it's been a few years now. One day of a tour, we just decided we'd be fully horrible to each other. This included (but wasn't limited to) knocking pints out of each others hands, eating each other's food and playful amounts of physical violence. If it was Dickhead Day, anything was ok and nobody could get mad. It was like the purge, but for emotionally stunted adult males. It's become thankfully less frequent, but there were inklings of Dickhead Day being declared when we strangely ended up at the Fifa eWorld Cup on this past tour. It was arranged via Steve's workplace and we decided we'd do our best to show him up by pretending to be various outlandish characters. It was quelled by a rather forceful statement from Steve that 'IT'S NOT DICKHEAD DAY.'
1. The Cheetah Onesies
I think this one was on our last 'proper' UK tour and we were in the apex of our 'We love It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' phase. There was an episode that season where a gag was that Frank just randomly had 'the spots' and turned up towards the end of the episode as a 'man-cheetah.' Well, before a show at the Birds Nest in Deptford we decided to pay a visit to Lakeside (a big ol' shopping centre in Essex) and whilst in Primani we stumbled across a load of Cheetah onesies that were reduced. We decided it'd be HILARIOUS to buy them and play in them. That night I sweated from places I didn't even know I had. The worst part, though, was that then me and Jimmy decided to fully commit to the onesies, and wore them all tour. Not just onstage, but all day as well. This was like, night one of maybe a 2 week tour. We got some weird looks, but it got weirder when we fully embraced the aesthetic and drew whiskers and a black nose on. In a nice aside, we brought the onesies back for a mainland Euro tour a bit later on, and Jimmy injured himself at a gig in Aachen whilst wearing the onesie, and had to be taken to the Krankenhaus whilst fully dressed as a cheetah. I love tour.
– Summers
This year Eat Defeat released the pop punk album of the year. Buy it here: https://itsalrighttonotbealright.com/
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