The Ivy - CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the indie music duo, The Ivy, shares one of their stories from being on the road. You can check out the story below:

Touring has put us through some wild situations—like the time we hit a full-grown, 8-foot elk on a dark backroad in New Mexico. But the craziest moment by far happened during our 2023 tour.

We had just wrapped up our show at Mercury Lounge in NYC and were headed a few hours down the road before crashing in Pennsylvania. As we wound our way through the Appalachian Mountains, pulling a heavy trailer loaded with all our gear—including a full LED wall—it was clear the drive wasn’t going to be easy. To make matters worse, the trailer didn’t have its own brakes.

I (Shawn) was lying on the air mattress in the back of the van when I noticed our sound guy, who was driving, taking the mountain turns faster and faster. Wyatt, sitting up front, told him to slow down. That’s when he casually responded, “Yep. Brakes are out.”

With no brakes, he had no choice but to yank the wheel through each turn, skidding down the winding road and barely holding control. It felt like we were one bad curve away from disaster. Finally, he managed to pull into a gas station, and we came to a stop.

As soon as we got out, we saw flames—our back tire rotors were literally on fire. Wyatt grabbed water bottles from the cooler, frantically dumping them on the tires. We even peed on them to help. We used everything we had to put out the fire, then stood there, rattled, waiting for the van to cool down.

About 30 minutes later, I took it for a test drive up and down the street. Somehow, the brakes seemed to be working again, so we limped our way to the hotel, grabbed a few hours of sleep, and hoped for the best.

The next morning, I took the van to an auto shop first thing. Mind you, we had just replaced the brakes a week before the tour, so this didn’t make any sense. The mechanic took everything apart, inspected every piece, then gave us the most ridiculous diagnosis: “Everything looks perfect.”

Turns out, pulling that much weight downhill had generated so much heat and friction that the brakes literally couldn’t keep up—so they caught on fire. But as long as we weren’t barreling down mountains, we’d be fine.

So, with that “reassurance,” we took our chances and finished the tour.

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