IOTA - CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the rock band, IOTA, shares one of one stories from being on the road. You can check out the story below:

During our first-ever DIY tour around the UK, we played across London, Birmingham, Rotherham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Bristol. Almost immediately after hitting the road, we had to make pit stops because our bassist, Mule, has the smallest bladder and needs frequent bathroom breaks. To pass the time and keep things interesting, in true rock n roll style we asked Mule to review each service station we stopped at with a score out of ten.

When we rolled into venues and restaurants in each city, we couldn't help but notice the unusually frequent looks we were getting. But as it turns out, our drummer Tom's new haircut and dress style had him unintentionally channelling Yungblud. Everywhere we went, people were looking at us with puzzled glances but this may have been from us following him round shouting ‘oh my god, is that Yung Blug’. It became a running joke for the week, and we nicknamed Tom Yungblud and thanked him on stage for supposedly joining us every night of the tour.

We crashed on people's sofas and checked into budget hotels throughout the tour. One spot, in particular, stands out in our memory. We pull up to this place before our show, and there's living room furniture scattered across the front garden. We told ourselves it was just a quirky decoration choice. However, when we got inside our rooms, our suspicions were confirmed. Dirty plates and mugs stacked up in the bathroom sink, bed sheets that seemed to have a life of their own, and a shower that we were convinced had its own inhabitant. After playing our sweaty set, we crashed in our rooms for the night.

The next day, Mule walked away thinking he'd been a considerate friend and picked up our guitarist Joe's underwear. But, when he asked Joe if he wanted them washed before returning, it turns out they weren't Joe's… They belonged to the mystery person who stayed in that room before us. Lesson learned: next time, we're stretching that budget for some decent digs.

As we made our late-night descent back to Bristol for our hometown show the next day, Mule, true to form, pipes up in the back of the van about his minuscule bladder. Even though we were only 25 minutes from home, he somehow convinced us to make a pit stop, in the name of comparing the facilities at the mighty Gloucester Services Farmshop and Kitchen with all the other stops on this tour.

We piled out of the van, as we had begun to salivate over the thought of the glass-fronted, eco-built comfort food heaven that is Gloucester Services. The promise of freshly made cooked meals and bakery beckoned. Suddenly, there's a shout from Welsh Yungblud (aka Tom), “Joe, the van is moving!” and we turned around to see our driverless van rolling through the empty car park. Joe forgot to put on the handbrake! After a tense minute or so, diving back into the van to engage the handbrake as it picked up speed, we collectively wiped the sweat from our foreheads after that heart-stopping close call of potentially losing the van and all our gear to the M5.

We eagerly ran over to the service station doors, only to find them fully closed. Forget Mule's urgent need for the bathroom — we were now all gutted that we couldn’t have our overpriced sausage roll! Turning to Mule, we asked him to rate Gloucester compared to our other stops, but he was distraught and refused to give it a rating. What a rock n roll tour that was.

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