ROOOAAAD TRIIIIIP! Pack some munchies and strap yourself in!
Posted by Andre King on Sunday, June 27, 2010
Under: Work
So I'm booked to perform with Jason Kavan, Paul Redwood & Taylor Glenn in Newquay & Torquay, towns (possibly cities) some 200 odd MILES away from London, none of these guys, I have ever met before, and jason has put his hand up to drive from London to the gigs in exchange for a little gas money. So a plan is forged!
My mission... should I decide to accept it is to make my way to Walthamstow Central Station by 130pm on Friday afternoon to liaise with Jason Kavan and journey with him to pick up Paul Redwood, the MC, before arriving in Newquay for a comedy show at 8pm. Taylor Glenn (The woman with two boys names) is traveling down from Wales and will meet us at Pure Nightclub, 52 Tolcarne Lane, Newquay.
Well, strike that match, spank my arse and call me Sally, I'm in.
I make it to walthomstow central station by 1pm, meet up with Jason, grab the car and head towards the ring road to shoot down and pick up Paul the MC when we immediately hit bumper to bumper traffic. We had planned to pick up Paul by 4.30pm as he was around 2 hours away from the venue, unfortunately, by 5pm we were still on the outskirts of London, as such Paul opted to take his own car to the venue so that he as the MC could at least start the show with Taylor and stall to give us enough time to arrive. Our E.T.A timed at 8.40pm, more traffic worries as we came into Bristol pushed our ETA back to 8.50pm.
"I'm stuck in traffic on the A330" Paul said down the phone, he was likely going to be as late to the venue as us! He had a good 100 mile lead on us. But the accident blocking the road had tied him up for an hour. All the while we are traveling, we are keeping in touch with Paul and the venue letting them know how far away we were. "We're 64 miles away from the venue" I said excitedly to Paul. "Really?" says he, "I'm about 30 miles away from the venue - I guess I'll see you in a bit?"
I didn't register the curiosity in his tone, I should have in retrospect, how had we managed to get with 30 miles of him when he was traveling as well and had a 130 mile head start on us? Sure he had been stuck for an hour in traffic, but making up 100 miles in that hour? How did we miss the traffic jam on the A330? Surely we had hit it as well?
830pm and Paul starts the show 840pm, Paul is on stage and we realise...... that the address we have put into the TOMTOM satellite Navigation system is TORQUAY instead of NEWQUAY and we are at the WRONG VENUE!
Not to worry, Torquay, Newquay, sounds really similar, they're probably really close to one and other..... this is our mantra as we type in the post code for Newquay and discover that Newquay is........ 98 MILES back the way we just came, new ETA is now 10.04pm Oh shiiiiit!
On the phone to Paul... answerphone - of course, he's probably on stage telling people as they're going to a break that the feature act (mois!) will be there in 10-15 minutes.
"Uh hi Paul, good news and bad news bro, the good news is we have realised our error and we are speeding along to Newquay as quickly as we can, the bad news is we're in TORQUAY instead of Newquay - see you in a bit! Will be arriving around 10pm"
And so it was that we continued our journey, we have now been on the road for 8 hours and still an hour away from the venue traveling at 100 miles an hour....keep the faith - we can do it. Head down the A330, with any luck the accident that Paul got caught in is cleared by now.... no such luck. Traffic is at a standstill.
RECALCULATE ROUTE - AVOID ROADBLOCK 1/4 MILE!
(Turn around, for 150 yards, then execute left turn, follow road, veer left)
"Is this road one way?" says Andre
"I hope so..." Says Jason
(Turn right in 300 yards)
"Where are we?" says Andre
"I have no idea..." says Jason.
(veer right then sharp left)
"Dude.... we're are almost out of gas..."
"I know.... "
"Dude... we are almost out of gas, on a strange country road in the middle of nowhere."
"I know...."
"Seriously Jason... if that was your plan all along you didn't have to purposefully programmed in the wrong address, you could have just bought me dinner and movie...."
(Turn right onto A330 and continue journey to destination...)
WOOO HOOOOOO!!! We skipped all that stalled traffic, ETA still 10pm
Suffice to say, we made the show at 10pm, arrived, got changed in the carpark, ran thru the entrance to the venue that looked a lot like a set from a Stanley Kubric film, all stark white and chrome, performed for two stag nights (NO chics! lol) before ending the night with a large draught Pepsi, travel to the nights accom and heading off to perform in Torquay all over again (at least we knew the way now)
The Torquay gig.... 9 people showed up, no accom and all drove home afterwards : (
But we did our job, we stood up on stage in front of those 9 people, we performed our hearts out and garnered laughs in all the right places before we left for home, tired, sweaty, glad to have made new friends and picked up some new material for another show, another day, somewhere new, and with enough time passed, old friends that we met on the road to Newquay & Torquay.
My mission... should I decide to accept it is to make my way to Walthamstow Central Station by 130pm on Friday afternoon to liaise with Jason Kavan and journey with him to pick up Paul Redwood, the MC, before arriving in Newquay for a comedy show at 8pm. Taylor Glenn (The woman with two boys names) is traveling down from Wales and will meet us at Pure Nightclub, 52 Tolcarne Lane, Newquay.
Well, strike that match, spank my arse and call me Sally, I'm in.
I make it to walthomstow central station by 1pm, meet up with Jason, grab the car and head towards the ring road to shoot down and pick up Paul the MC when we immediately hit bumper to bumper traffic. We had planned to pick up Paul by 4.30pm as he was around 2 hours away from the venue, unfortunately, by 5pm we were still on the outskirts of London, as such Paul opted to take his own car to the venue so that he as the MC could at least start the show with Taylor and stall to give us enough time to arrive. Our E.T.A timed at 8.40pm, more traffic worries as we came into Bristol pushed our ETA back to 8.50pm.
"I'm stuck in traffic on the A330" Paul said down the phone, he was likely going to be as late to the venue as us! He had a good 100 mile lead on us. But the accident blocking the road had tied him up for an hour. All the while we are traveling, we are keeping in touch with Paul and the venue letting them know how far away we were. "We're 64 miles away from the venue" I said excitedly to Paul. "Really?" says he, "I'm about 30 miles away from the venue - I guess I'll see you in a bit?"
I didn't register the curiosity in his tone, I should have in retrospect, how had we managed to get with 30 miles of him when he was traveling as well and had a 130 mile head start on us? Sure he had been stuck for an hour in traffic, but making up 100 miles in that hour? How did we miss the traffic jam on the A330? Surely we had hit it as well?
830pm and Paul starts the show 840pm, Paul is on stage and we realise...... that the address we have put into the TOMTOM satellite Navigation system is TORQUAY instead of NEWQUAY and we are at the WRONG VENUE!
Not to worry, Torquay, Newquay, sounds really similar, they're probably really close to one and other..... this is our mantra as we type in the post code for Newquay and discover that Newquay is........ 98 MILES back the way we just came, new ETA is now 10.04pm Oh shiiiiit!
On the phone to Paul... answerphone - of course, he's probably on stage telling people as they're going to a break that the feature act (mois!) will be there in 10-15 minutes.
"Uh hi Paul, good news and bad news bro, the good news is we have realised our error and we are speeding along to Newquay as quickly as we can, the bad news is we're in TORQUAY instead of Newquay - see you in a bit! Will be arriving around 10pm"
And so it was that we continued our journey, we have now been on the road for 8 hours and still an hour away from the venue traveling at 100 miles an hour....keep the faith - we can do it. Head down the A330, with any luck the accident that Paul got caught in is cleared by now.... no such luck. Traffic is at a standstill.
RECALCULATE ROUTE - AVOID ROADBLOCK 1/4 MILE!
(Turn around, for 150 yards, then execute left turn, follow road, veer left)
"Is this road one way?" says Andre
"I hope so..." Says Jason
(Turn right in 300 yards)
"Where are we?" says Andre
"I have no idea..." says Jason.
(veer right then sharp left)
"Dude.... we're are almost out of gas..."
"I know.... "
"Dude... we are almost out of gas, on a strange country road in the middle of nowhere."
"I know...."
"Seriously Jason... if that was your plan all along you didn't have to purposefully programmed in the wrong address, you could have just bought me dinner and movie...."
(Turn right onto A330 and continue journey to destination...)
WOOO HOOOOOO!!! We skipped all that stalled traffic, ETA still 10pm
Suffice to say, we made the show at 10pm, arrived, got changed in the carpark, ran thru the entrance to the venue that looked a lot like a set from a Stanley Kubric film, all stark white and chrome, performed for two stag nights (NO chics! lol) before ending the night with a large draught Pepsi, travel to the nights accom and heading off to perform in Torquay all over again (at least we knew the way now)
The Torquay gig.... 9 people showed up, no accom and all drove home afterwards : (
But we did our job, we stood up on stage in front of those 9 people, we performed our hearts out and garnered laughs in all the right places before we left for home, tired, sweaty, glad to have made new friends and picked up some new material for another show, another day, somewhere new, and with enough time passed, old friends that we met on the road to Newquay & Torquay.
In : Work