Seattle’s Tacocat share their grossest, funniest, and most obscene tales from tour

The tour circuit can be tough. Unfamiliar venues, unfavourable sleeping spots, long hours in the back of a van and the unassailable feeling that no one’s going to show up all add up to what could be one of the longest stretches of your life.

Thankfully, colourful Seattle pop punk four-piece Tacocat are seasoned pros at this kind of stuff, and they’ve got an all-encompassing sense of humour that transforms what could be a potentially traumatic situation an awesome story.

They’ve shared six of their most awkward tour stories with us below – check it out.

The Ballad of New Orleans: Cat Boxes, Butt Dials, and Shitting in a Thunderstorm

It was our first time in New Orleans, probably in 2007. It was clear early in the evening that the Circle Bar, the venue we were playing, was certainly going to give us any drink we wanted, for free, forever, because bars do not close in New Orleans. Needless to say, we took them up on the offer.

The night went something like this: The show wrapped up very late and the band we opened for offered to let us stay at their place, but not before “going to clean up” (for TWO hours) while we continued drinking, only taking a break to give each other haircuts on the sidewalk.

For some reason, while waiting in the bathroom line, we got into drinking “bathroom booze”, (half-drank cocktails people left in the bathroom) and gossiping. One of the girls in the band we were on tour with (our great friends in a band called Forever from SF/Portland) ends up butt-dialing her girlfriend WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF TELLING US A STORY ABOUT HOW SHE HAD CHEATED ON HER A COUPLE NIGHTS BEFORE, WITH A GUY.

Much crying, puking, sidewalk passing out, and other shenanigans went by, and by the time our hosts came back to collect us, both our drummer Lelah and Forever’s drummer Joel were passed out in the van, everyone was a boiling hot mess of very tired and very wasted. Eager to sleep, we were thrilled to find that our host’s apartment was home to no less than four COMPLETELY FULL cat-boxes (actual quote: “When you have more boxes you have to clean them less”) and that this semi-terrifying couple smoked cigarettes indoors with the windows closed… Oh, and they locked us in. Meanwhile, here is Lelah’s account of the rest of her night:

“I woke up in a van (not even OUR van) to the sound of someone throwing a piano down a stairwell. The piano turned out to be thunder. I was in a van in easily the nastiest torrential Southern downpour I’d ever experienced. At first I thought it was cool, but then I realized that I had no idea where I was or where my band mates where and that in about 30 seconds I was definitely going to shit my pants. Faced with two options, I chose to dash out into the storm, into an open field next to a Burger King, and poop. It was major di-di. It took too long. The piano-thunder was yelling so loud. I retuned to the van completely drenched. That is when Joel appeared in the back-seat and asked me ‘did you just shit in this thunder storm?! Do you need dry clothes?’ I said yes to both, he gave me a tank top and a pair of his underwear. I dried off and curled up on the bench seat and went back to sleep.”

“The shuttle is leaving to go to the other show!”

Once upon a tour in San Francisco, we played a pretty awesome DIY warehouse festival that seemed like it was going to be super fun. Or so we thought…

The place was packed with tons of rad people and everything seemed to be going great, until the band before us finished playing and started loading off the stage. Unexpectedly, the festival’s MC ran up to the mic to urgently announce that, “THE LAST SHUTTLE IS LEAVING IN TWO MINUTES TO GO TO THE OTHER SHOW.’” Apparently the festival was split between two venues and to accommodate that, there was a shuttle. “DONT FORGET TO FILE TO THE FRONT OF THE VENUE RIGHT NOW AND GET ON THE SHUTTLE TO SEE THE HEADLINES! Oh, or you can watch Tacocat right now, BUT SERIOUSLY, THE SHUTTLE IS LEAVING RIGHT NOW!”

She then scurried off the stage and onto the shuttle bus, with most of the crowd. We played to a small handful of people who don’t scramble out immediately to see the other show.