Suns of Thyme – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, Jens Rosenkranz of the Berlin-based band, Suns of Thyme, talks about one of their crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

My crazy tour story is not so much a story about the one of a kind craziness of a person we met or a situation we got into. It is more a story about the everyday craziness of a touring band.

It was early summer 2015. We had played the last show of our tour at a festival in Southern Switzerland the night before To get back home to Berlin we had to cover about 500 miles (800km). Not quite the ideal tour routing but nothing we wouldn’t be used to. Since we only played festivals on this tour, we didn’t have to bring the full backline (drums and Bass). So I rented a smaller and faster Van, knowing we had to cover a lot of miles.

During the few days of touring the weather had changed dramatically. From 60°F and rain when we started in Berlin to 86°F at the festival. We all wanted to get back home as fast as possible and chill out in the sun. After 350 miles, when we were going 85mph (140km/h), I realized the car was vibrating. Although being very suspicious I blamed the condition of the road. We still had 150 miles to go and didn’t plan on making another stop. I was waiting for the road surface to change to see if the vibration would stop. Well, it didn’t. I think it was then that I realized something was wrong. We slowed down immediately and stopped at the next gas station.

We checked the tires and learned that one of them was about to burst. The fabric inside the rubber had broken and formed a little bubble in the tire that had caused the wobble. The temperature change and our heavy gear combined with the high speed resulted in a much higher pressure in the tires. We were really lucky we had stopped the car.

Of course, we had to change the broken tire and lower the pressure in the others. But to get to the emergency tools, we had to unload all of our gear at the gas station. We were fumbling around with the little car jack for around 20 minutes until a Ukrainian truck driver came to help. He brought proper tools and changed the tire in not even 5 minutes, basically by himself. I hope he enjoyed our album that we gave him as a little thank you. Praise this man!

There we were, still 150 miles to go with a spare wheel allowing us only to go 50 mph (80km/h) and we were not going to take chances again that day. We were frustrated but happy to be alive. So we continued our ride staying behind the same truck for three hours. But instead of being cranky and annoyed, we started to enjoy the trip. We were moving slowly. It would be a late night before we would reach Berlin anyways. So we started talking about anything and everything.

When we hang out, our conversation often revolves around band stuff and it happens that we forget to catch up on each others lives sometimes. Since we were trapped in a (slowly) moving car with hours and hours ahead of us we had no other choice but talk. In the end, we got home safely and better friends than ever.

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