Madison Olds – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the pop artist, Madison Olds, shares one of her stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

I’ve played lots of shows in and out of Canada but my first international trip was 2 years ago. The whole fam joined for 5 dates in Singapore with the Music Matters Festival. There were lots of rehearsals and days spent getting merchandise and advertising materials ready. A few weeks before leaving I got a bad case of strep throat but it healed quickly and I was grateful to be able to travel. This was the first time for me to visit Asia and I am hella fortunate to live in Canada where we have crazy awesome grant opportunities with organizations like SOCAN, Factor Canada, and Music BC.

It was a very long trip with jetlag and I started getting sick again. We had a ton of gear, including in-ear systems, merchandise, and banners, and of course, we worried if our stuff would arrive. If you’ve had previous trips like I have, you already know the risk of not arriving with your luggage. We arrived to 36 degrees celsius, hot as balls weather. My father who wanted so badly to be a part of the planning ordered hot pink suits for him and my brother (insert googly eyes haha) and not one to stifle creativity, I let him have his fun. I’m sure he regretted the costume choice later; carting heavy gear with high humidity and heat was a terrible combination.

The first show was painful. Our gear wasn’t working, the tech crew couldn’t work with our in-ears and we couldn’t hear drum triggers or click count-ins which pretty much made that first show a trainwreck and almost too painful to really recount. Haha. Oh, and you guessed it. Dave aka Dad was sweating his ass off in that suit he had to have. The next few days we experienced similar tech issues, scheduling changes that gave us the opportunity to do an acoustic show for the IBIS hotel chain, and a wonderful night that highlighted and celebrated female talent with college radio interviews and social media promotion. The last show was so fun, with a great energetic crowd and an amazing lineup of female-led talent. I didn’t put up my banner once; carried that shit for nothing, haha! Might have sold two shirts and a cap. Our in-ears were able to be used at 1 of 5 shows. I did get to see the beauty of Singapore and we carried on to Bangkok before returning home which was a treat to share with my family. We tried new foods, and I discovered that Durian doesn’t go down very well and repeats for 24 hours so you get to hate it over and over again. I met some incredible artists and discovered that even best-laid plans have to be open to adaptation. Oh, and I got full-blown strep again by the time I made it to Bangkok, but the great news is you can buy all prescriptions over the counter and the pharmacists are very savvy and eager to help. The Music Matters folks took great care of us and we are still in touch and they’ve been kind enough to include me in various campaigns. I also caught a seminar at the festival with Billie Eilish’s manager/agent at the time which was inspiring. Overall, it was a great experience giving me realistic expectations of what to expect that next time; hopefully with no strep throat, though.

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