Curtis Braly – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the country artist, Curtis Braly, talks about some of his crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

There always seems to be something that doesn’t go as planned while you’re on tour. While we were on tour opening for Tanya Tucker this past summer we had a bit of a scare with the tour bus. We had just pulled in to Alto, New Mexico for two nights of back to back shows. Alto is a fairly small town & just as we arrived, a large rain storm along with hail moved in.

The bus driver needed to get fuel before we settled into the venue. So, he got his GPS out to find a gas station that offered diesel and began to navigate down the narrow 2 lane roads to get fuel. As the GPS said “You have arrived”, we looked out the window and saw that the gas station was no longer in business. At this point, we were on the opposite end of town. So, we needed to turn around and head back the other direction. The problem was trying to find a good place to turn around because there weren’t any parking lots to turn around in. So, he made the decision to make the block through a nearby neighborhood.

We then came to a 90 degree turn up a steep hill. Keep in mind we are in a 45 ft tour bus as well as pulling a cargo trailer behind us. The driver stopped with hesitation as he scoped out the situation. I looked at him & said we aren’t going to be able to make this turn. To which he replied, “I got this!”. (Famous last words) Keep in mind, it’s pouring rain and the roads are wet. He proceeds to make the turn up this steep hill. About half way into the turn, the bus stops moving forward and the wheels are just spinning in place. After about 30 seconds of his persistence to push forward, the bus began sliding backward down the hill and off the edge of the road until it jack-knifed and crunched into the cargo trailer. At this time, the bus is tilted to the side and my merchandise mgr came sliding out of his bunk where he slept. Then, a large cloud of smoke began pouring out of the back of the bus, leading everyone on the bus to think it was on fire.

Long story short, a couple of marines happen to be driving by and came to our rescue. They were able to lift the trailer off the bus hitch and get it moved so that we could get the bus back on the road. The large cloud of smoke was just the overheated engine working overtime. After 3 police cars & 2 marines, we got back on the road and arrived in time for another sold out show with Tanya. Opening for Ms. Tucker is excitement enough, we really didn’t need the extra provided by our driver!

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