Brendan James – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the indie pop artist, Brendan James, shares one of his stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

Telling just one tour story is no easy task. I feel I like I have thousands. But I’d have to say one of my favorite and most freeing moments of my life took place on tour one night. A couple of other songwriters and I were rolling through Portland, OR playing a little spot called ‘The Woods’. The show went really well, good vibe, good turnout, and we were feeling good (as you do).. and even better cuz we knew we had a night off before heading to Seattle.

After seeing a bunch of locals on bikes, I just said out of nowhere.. “man I just wanna ride bikes”. The crew laughed at me, but then some friend of a friend said.. “hey, I know a guy who’s got bikes.. lots of bikes.. and he’d probably let you use them… where do you wanna go?” We were like, “Uhhh, anywhere really, all around the city.” It was midnight at the time.

But before we knew it, both bands and crew were headed to some random guys house, walking down the creepiest basement stairs we’d ever seen… where to our amazement there were 15 old ten-speed bikes.. just sitting down there collecting dust. Seeing no helmets, someone suggested he had pots and pans and weird stuff to wear .. so without a second thought, we just put on the pots and pans and road out.

We spent the next 6 hours until sunrise riding through all the parks and back streets of Portland… laughing, joking, getting chased by cops for ‘trespassing’.. stopping for donuts, beer, liquor, a tattoo, and winding up at 5am in a karaoke bar..singing George Michael.. hugging a bartender named bartender. It was perfect. Sun came up, bikes went back, vans drove to Seattle. Tour resumed. And the only picture that remains is of my drummer, flying down the street, shit-eating grin, wearing a metal pot. I just don’t ever remember feeling so free and alive. That was a good one.

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