Kara Connolly - CRAZY TOUR STORIES Ep. 935

Hey Digital Tour Bus, I'm Cara Connolly here to share with you my crazy tour stories. So I went on tour with one of my best friends, Teddy Gold, and this was a low budget tour. This was our very first tour. So we took my car and we drove up north on a little West Coast tour and we went up to Santa Cruz and one of the places that we stayed was a frat house. Yes, we were not aware of this because Teddy's brother went to Santa Cruz and he lived with these dudes and he was out of town so he's like, why don't you just stay with my friends and we get there. We're thinking we're staying at like a normal house and it turns out that it's a frat house and we're living in the attic and there are two beds on the floor that have no sheets and that are like, I kid you not, yellow. Like it looked like they had not been washed in years. And the washing machine had tied, just stuck to the top with like pennies and quarters stuck to it. There was like a zillion tissues and like Q-tip things on the floor of the bathroom. You're redefining the words low budget for me right now. Oh yeah, you guys, this was real low budget and I'm not kidding when I tell you that it's like worse than you could, like this is the dirtiest, grossest house I have ever been in and we had to stay there that night to play a show in Santa Cruz and Teddy and I were just like looking at each other like, do you want that bed or that bed? I think we both stayed in the same bed because it looked slightly less sketch. But ever so slightly, like we were scared to take a shower because you know, fungus. So that was crazy tour story number one. Second tour, you guys, low budget tour, let me remind you, very first tour. We were staying with another, I'm going to say another friend of Teddy's. So Teddy, I'm just kidding, I love Teddy so much, but I guess I shouldn't say friend. It was more of like a friend of a friend. So she hadn't met him before, but it was like a friend of the friend who lived in Portland, Oregon and was like, why don't you just like stay with me? Another scenario where we get there and we're like, it's this like creepy old house with like taxidermy animals. It's it's weird. And we walked down the stairs and he's like, this is where you're staying. And it's like a bed right next to his bed in the basement in like this, like it was definitely like creepy vibes. Like it was like there's like, again, like a spot on the bed, like creepy spot. And then there's like his bed, like right next to the bed. But the house is big. It's like a huge house. And for whatever reason, we're like both sleeping in the basement next to his bed. So anyway, Teddy and I go to the bathroom and we're like, we cannot stay here. Like this is like frat house. Okay. But this is taking it like one step farther than frat house. We are not staying here. And so we're like, what do we do? We're staying here? No, we can't stay here. We're like conferring in the bathroom while he's like outside of the bathroom. You guys almost ready for bed? Yes! We're like, oh my God. So we make up some like elaborate, I don't even know what we said, but we were just like, oh, so crazy. Like, no more show in Portland. Like, I don't know, we like say something and we leave and we ended up getting found out because there was still a show in Portland, but we just were like, we don't know like what to do. We cannot stay here. You're a nicer person. I would have been like, I'm not staying here. I'm sorry, I'm out. Yeah. And thankfully one of my friends, Kate, thank you so much, Kate. We love you so much. Lifesaver from high school lived like out of town a little bit in the suburbs. And she was like, why don't you just come stay with me? And I'm like, oh gosh, why didn't I think of that or ask of that? And so, so we didn't stay with that between like, you know, all of these like murder mystery podcasts that we were listening to and then like going to stay at this like actual house. I was like, all right. Yeah. So that's, that's what you get for a first low budget tour. You know, lots of sleeping and in odd places. The next time you call me for some West Coast dates, I'm going to need more information. I'm like, yeah, the next week I'm going to take you up the West Coast. I've got places to stay. Maybe I'll book the hotels. He's like, guys, I don't know if we can go on tour with Kara. This is RJ Root, by the way, he is my guitarist, my lovely guitarist. And I wanted him to tell his crazy tour stories as well. The worst one was like actually the best trip I ever did. It was so cool. Well, not the best trip ever, but one of the best ones. I got to go to the Middle East and play, which was incredible. It's like such an old part of the world and everything is so cool. I had the most amazing time and like on our day off, we got to go to Petra and like Mount Zibo and see all these things that I've been like reading about in the Bible since I was like a little kid and like going over world history and stuff and everything was great. But like when you fly into the Middle East, everyone in custom speaks English. When you're leaving, nobody speaks English. And of course, I was like the American that didn't speak the language. I was like such a stereotype. But yeah, so when I fly, I usually backline an amplifier and I have like my pedal board and my guitar with me and I check a suitcase. So I check my suitcase and I have my pedal board, which goes under the seat and my guitar, which goes in the overhead. So, you know, I put them both through, guitar goes through, no problem. Pedal board goes through and like alarm starts going off. And keep in mind, customs looks very different in that part of the world, like Uzis and like big machine guns and like very intense military uniforms and, you know, good security, but it was very terrifying. So they yanked me out of line and they're like talking to me very quickly and I don't understand a word. I was freaking out. I was like I would have panicked. I did a little bit. Like I was like, I'm going to jail here and I won't even be able to explain my case to anyone. And so I was like freaking out trying to figure it out. And then I look on the, on the, like the x-ray screen that the pedal board's going through. Well, the pedal board is just like a bunch of little boxes that are wired to a power supply. So it doesn't look good in the x-ray machine. So I was like, Oh, so I finally like, I'm like trying to explain and I'm pointing and I eventually like got my guitar out of the case, like plugged in my cable and was like miming plugging into the pedal board. And they finally were like, Oh, and then they start laughing. They were like, okay, go ahead. Oh my God. They totally thought I was like a bomb. Yeah. They totally thought you were like coming in to like do something. Yeah. So I walked through and I found the first person in this bohemian, so I was like, where's the nearest bar? I need a drink. Drink now. That sounds very high stress. Yeah. In a different way than ours. I don't know. I think it would have been more stressed out about sleeping next to the taxidermy guy. That was definitely like really unexpected and odd. I was like, all right. There's a big house and the only two beds are right next to each other. Yeah. In the basement. And it was a basement with just like nothing on the walls. Like just imagine like, just like a cement basement. Yeah. That's a murder dungeon. Like it's weird. Right? Like I was like, this is bizarre. Like of all, those were like the strangest places I've probably ever stayed, like on that tour, but it's good memories. I mean, me and Teddy still laugh about it. We're like, do you remember when we did this thing? I'm like, it's so crazy. It took me a while to laugh about the experience in the airport. Now I can laugh about it. Take, you know, a little PTSD. Yeah. And a piece of advice, whenever you're going somewhere new on tour, make sure you know at least a little bit of the language so you can get through customs without possibly being arrested. Oh, I'm going to have to keep that one in mind. Yeah. Duolingo. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That works. That's good. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Digital Tour Guide. We'll see you next time. Bye.