FANGZ – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the post-hardcore band, FANGZ, shares one of their stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

Our band is known for being a four-piece punk rock outfit from Sydney, but we like to think of ourselves as a five-piece. The fifth member is often silent and like most band members is semi-reliable. That fifth member is my (sometimes) trusty Mazda CX-5 wagon. Equipped with roof racks and a luggage pod we bought for $100 on wish.com it is the ultimate touring vehicle. This is the story of the time we left the CX-5 in Gundagdai for two months.

It was December 2019, and we had a big weekend of shows lined up. First up was Stay Gold in Melbourne followed by Frankie’s Pizza 7th Birthday bash the following day. Samuel (guitarist) and I work together, and our company was having a Christmas party in Melbourne which meant we landed ourselves some free airfares. Woodie (drummer) and Josh (vocals) “volunteered” (read: had no choice because we couldn’t afford it) to drive to Melbourne and then drive the gear home to meet us in Sydney. Seems like a flawless plan where nothing could possibly go wrong…

After a great show and a sleepless night of partying at The Lame Duck, we boarded our flight home. On arrival in Sydney, Sam and I turned on our phones to see we had 20 missed calls each from Woodie. It would seem that the car had broken down and the boys had just booked a tow truck to take them to the closest mechanic which happened to be in Gundagai which is about four hours outside of Sydney. The biggest problem was there was no public transport to Sydney on Sunday, and we had to be onstage in six hours. I called Jordan from Frankie’s and he said “Nah, you’re playing. Whatever time they get to Sydney you’re playing.”

It took Woodie’s dad 5 hours to drive to Gundagai and when he got there he asked Josh and Woodie if either could drive back to Sydney to which they replied: “sorry we got bored and bought a case of beer…we’re hammered.”

We ended up going on just past midnight at Frankie’s which also made us play over billed international headliner and godfathers of extreme metal ‘Venom’. Their crowd was not your typical FANGZ audience, we were really drunk and although the choice of notes might have been questionable, I still think it was one of our best shows to date. A real rally the troops feel. Like the end of ‘Cool Runnings’ or some other feel-good movie where everything sucks.

As for the CX-5 after $6000 and a new engine – it was fine. The moral of the story is if you’re going to leave a car in Gundagai in the middle of summer for 3 months – take out the beers and KFC. That car will never smell the same again. I guess we should have just sprung for the extra plane tickets?

Keep up with the band on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.