Jackie Venson – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the indie artist, Jackie Venson, talks about one of her crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

This was it; I had officially gone stir crazy. With thousands of hours of local gigs under my belt, two EPs and an album released I couldn’t stand to spend one more day sans touring. Up until that point, I had applied for many festivals, sent many e-mails and done cold calls to get the ball rolling but had not gotten a single bite. Finally, I had decided that it wasn’t going to happen unless I made it happen so I packed up my stuff, called my friend and planned a trip to Houston in February of 2014. The plan was to stay there for a week and play any open mic or jam I could get my hands on, if nothing came of it at least I could say I tried!

It’s the night before I leave and the plan is to depart by 11am the next morning so I can arrive in time for the Mucky Duck open mic, a rather prestigious club in H-Town. All of a sudden an e-mail pops up in my inbox, “you’ve been chosen to audition for the Belk Southern Musician Showcase! Your audition time is 10am tomorrow”. Of course, I am confused, I don’t even remember applying for this but in the spirit of adventure I figured I could audition for it and head off to Houston right after.

After the audition, I am in a hurry to make it to Houston in time but one major traffic jam later and I’m missing the sign up for the Mucky Duck. I’m so bummed but I figure that’s life. The next day it happens to be one of the coldest days of the season, I headed out to my second planned open mic as early as possible but still end up getting one of the last slots (at 1am!), the place is vacant and I play to a practically empty house. On the way back freezing rain freezes the roads and I am in dangerous driving conditions. I was exhausted and I could not believe how much the trip was backfiring. I finally end up making it back to my friend’s place by 3am and crashed out feeling extra hopeless.

The next morning I am woken up by a phone call, it’s Belk on the line telling me I had been chosen as a winner for the contest! It was at this point that I look up the company and the contest and find out that, among other things, an all expense paid tour around the United States in partnership with Live Nation is included. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I had to read it over and over again. Here I am feeling like giving up on my makeshift open mic tour (and all tours for that matter) and I’m awoken by this news. The experience ended up being life-changing and gave me a renewed energy for getting out there and doing what I love despite what goes wrong. I’ve been on many tours since and not all of them have been seamless, however, this experience, my time with Belk, and other self-planned tours have taught me that life isn’t always able to be planned and that you must roll with the punches.

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