Nick Tangorra – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

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

I was on the ‘Runaround Tour’ with Zendaya, Before You Exit, Jacob Whitesides, and a bunch of other cool acts touring ‘Six Flags Amusement Parks’ all over the country. Each show ran off without a hitch, except for the one in Atlanta, Georgia. Everything you could imagine that could go wrong, went wrong.

It all started out with our guitarist-at-the-time picking us up late. It was a small mix up that changed the entire trip. Now running extremely late to a busy NYC airport, we panicked and drove to arriving flights instead of departing. That had to have delayed us AT LEAST 10 minutes as we were already extremely low on time. By the time my team got online to go through TSA, it was brought to our attention that one of the bags my team had wasn’t a “carry on” and needed to go on a different line to check it in. At this point, I could throw up from all the stress and confusion this early in the morning.

We finally get through TSA which felt like it took forever, and ran towards our gate. Unfortunately, yep you guessed it, I watched the airline employees close the doors to the aircraft. I’m panicking, ‘please please please we’re here! I need to get on this flight! I have a performance’ and they said ‘sorry doors closed.’ AHHHHH! Not to be dramatic or anything, but I fell to the floor and thought I was dying.

After much panic, we booked a different flight to Atlanta which of course was a different airline which of course was a different terminal. Yep… I have to go through TSA again. We get a shuttle to take us to the next terminal when we find out that our tickets gave everyone in our traveling party the same last name “Tangorra”! They aren’t all Tangorras! So we had to resell our tickets back to the airline and buy them for an even higher cost. We didn’t even care we just needed to get through airport security again as quick as possible to make our next flight that was already boarding.

Thank God we made it to the gate on time and were able to land safely in Atlanta, but the story doesn’t end here. Because we didn’t arrive as first planned, the car company had given away our car. So we waited and waited and waited and finally got an even smaller vehicle to drive us to our hotel room meanwhile there is a MONSOON outside. Oh trust me – it gets worse. We finally get to the hotel and the place was a disaster. My room had a broken window with glass all over the floor, the rug was torn up and the air conditioner was on the bed.

What?????? There was no way we were staying there. Turns out we thought we were staying at a 4-star hotel… and we were. 4 stars out of 10! WHO RATES THEIR STARS OUT OF 10??? THAT’S LIKE GIVING SOMETHING 6 THUMBS UP!

The rest of the chaos continues the next morning when we get to the outdoor show venue. Long story short, a tire explodes in my dad’s face (He went deaf the entire day), guitarist’ guitar strings all broke after forgetting to detune before the flight, a thunderstorm started, I slipped and fell in the mud while wearing all white, and we never ate. But we didn’t stop playing because of a thunderstorm.. nope! We kept going and even got asked by the show promoter to keep playing because the headliner didn’t want to perform in the rain. Fine by me! After nearly an hour set, I decided to give my brother a shining opportunity to wow the crowd with an insane drum solo. Little did I know, he just broke his finger 20 seconds prior, during the show, after hitting it on the rental snare drum he was playing. I scream “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for a drum solo! Make some noise for my brother, Rafe Tangorra!”

I turn around and see all EMT’s around him snapping his finger back into place. I was just confused. What else could go wrong on this trip?? Well, he did the drum solo with one hand and you would’ve never known. It was incredible and bloody. It was incredibly bloody. And of course, we continued our show even after that.

When it was time to go home, it was brought to our attention that our flights home were canceled because we missed the initial flight going there. Heading home is truly another awful story…

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