The Acacia Strain – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

This crazy story from the road was written by Devin Shidaker, of the metal band, The Acacia Strain. You can check out his story, after the break.

Before joining The Acacia Strain, I played guitar for a band out of Chicago called Oceano. We toured relentlessly, and we got to see some pretty insane stuff over the years. One time in 2010, while we were on tour with Whitechapel, we had a one-off headliner show in Maine. I can’t remember the city, but we were playing at a VFW hall type venue that was in the woods behind some shopping center. In the parking lot of that shopping center were a few of your standard chain fast food restaurants, and Taco Bell sounded particularly good to most of us on that day. We hop in the van and head over to the Bell after loading in, and we decided that we were going to eat inside since we had the time. About half of us had our food, and the other guys were waiting by the counter for their orders. It’s a perfectly normal day, and suddenly this guy walks in and cuts everyone in line. He puts both hands on the counter, and he does not look happy. At all. He looks like Happy Time Harry from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, almost exactly. Look up a picture of him so you know what I’m talking about. My first thought is “they must have messed this guys order up”, but then he speaks. “I WANT A CHICKEN BURRITO!” he screams. This guy wasn’t here because his food was messed up, this guy just wanted food, and he wasn’t about to wait in line. This guy does not give a shit about other people. This guy rules. As soon as he yells, I’m on the edge of my seat with excitement, because I know I’m about to witness pure insanity. The woman standing next to him whom he cut in line says to him “excuse me sir, you just cut everyone in line”. His response to this woman has forever been burned into my memory, and to this day I can’t believe what I saw and heard. He looks over his shoulder, not taking his hands off of the counter, meets eye contact with this woman, and just screams at her “FUCK YOU, BITCH”. My jaw figuratively hits the floor as this maniac turns back to the counter and continues trying to order food, disregarding all of the people who were waiting before him. I’m looking at the rest of the guys in my band that are still standing there and besides our merch guy, Thaddeus, everyone is tense. Nobody knows what to do, and then the woman who he called a bitch finally responds, in the same disbelief everyone else is sharing, and says “Why are you being such a dick!?”. To this, our insane pal, turning his entire body this time, says to the woman “Why don’t you stop being such a FUCKING BITCH!?”. Finally Some super buff dad stands up, shielding his grade school aged son with his body, and says “You better sit down before I put you down”. Our drummer, Danny, decides that he’s hard and adds to Buff Dad’s comment with a real quiet “we all will”. Captain Crazy takes a seat and waits while everyone else orders, but his patience is wearing thin. He eventually starts mouthing off, at first under his breath, but then loud enough for everyone to hear, saying things like “fucking bitch” and “I want my fucking food”. Buff Dad finally says “What did I tell you, buddy?” and the guy stands up begrudgingly and leaves the Taco Bell. I don’t know what happened to him that made him so angry before coming inside, but I can only assume that he continued his rain of terror somewhere else, and I can only hope that he hasn’t been murdered yet, because I love seeing people like him in real life.

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