Vangelism – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the alternative rock duo, Vangelism, shares a couple of their stories from being on the road. You can check out the story, after the break.

Can you write about crazy tour stories when you haven’t been able to tour? Vangelism started as a Covid band, born in isolation between 2 parked cars and incubated during a pandemic that has yet to allow us to play real gigs.

Good thing we’ve got a long and complicated history.

Crazy Story #1
It’s 2015, a band I was in back then was opening up for Bon Jovi and Dashboard Confessional in Quebec City, at an outdoor venue that holds 80,000 people. Just before the gates opened, one of the stage techs came and got us from our trailer to watch what they affectionately called ‘The Chicken Run’. They opened the gates and tens of thousands of people ran at top speed to stake their place at the front of the stage, all while singing ‘It’s My Life’ in unison. Once they reached the stage, Jon Bon Jovi in his infinite wisdom and impeccable timing, descended in his helicopter and touched each one of them on the forehead with a mysterious liquid that appeared to be made from Richie Sambora’s tears. It was like the running of the bulls ended in manna from Heaven. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen at our club gigs.

Most of this is true, some of it is not, it might actually have been Bret Michaels’ tears, how could we ever know?

Crazy Story #2
A previous band some of us were in got booked for what we thought was a cheerleading conference in Nashville. Sweet gig.

Until we showed up and realized it was a junior cheerleaders conference and the kids were aged 8-12. Surprisingly our set went over like Mike Pence at a DNC fundraiser. Getting heckled by a 9-year-old in tights makes the music industry seems gentle. We finally figured out the chords to the Hannah Montana theme song and the show turned around. Never let the crowd see your pain, never.

Is there some exaggeration here? Probably, but who gives a shit. What happens in Nash-Vegas stays in Nash-Vegas, at least that’s what Wayne Newton told us. All the best crazy stories have a little bit of fiction. The truth is strange but somehow people are strangers.

Opened for The Doors once too. That’s a story for another day. I’ll just say I still have Morrison’s pants

Keep up with them on their website and Instagram.