Tour life might seem glamorous and fun, but it ain’t for the faint of heart. Between the homesickness and long drives, there’s also the issue of where to rest your head each night. Up-and-coming bands cutting their teeth playing tiny gig after tiny gig don’t get to ride in a lux tour bus much less stay in a hotel room every evening. Instead, they get to crash wherever they can while trying to save up gas money. Canadian technical death-metal crew Beyond Creation have done pretty well for themselves over the years: “We’ve actually been pretty spoiled on our past tours as far as places we stayed at!” singer-guitarist Simon Girard admits. “We’re so lucky to have so many awesome friends that welcome us in their homes for a night and we really want to express our gratitude towards them!” Still, the band has not been immune to crashing at some very strange spots over their 15 years of existence. Girard filled us in on a few of the oddest.
1. PATRICIA HOTEL, VANCOUVER
The first one that comes to my mind is the Patricia Hotel in Vancouver. It’s an old place built in the poorest area and literally surrounded by crackheads and homeless people. We heard police sirens, some gun shots and completely hammered people screaming out loud all night long. It was heartbreaking to see.
2. AIRBNB, NETHERLANDS
Second is an Airbnb in the Netherlands. It was really retreated from the city, and when we got there at night, it looked like a huge barn with some really weird stuff in there, like the puppet sitting on a bike from the movie Decadence, among other horror movie props. We later found out it was the owner’s Halloween decorations.
3. IN THE MIDDLE OF SASKATCHEWAN
Third one was during our first tour with Cannibal Corpse. We didn’t have any GPS so we were using a paper map and during the night we arrived at one point on the highway that was closed. We had to take another path but we ended up driving in the dirt and rocks for about four hours without seeing any light, home or people. Running very low on gas, we finally arrived and stopped in a very small town called Kerrobert. It was around 6 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and everyone living in this town was outside partying and/or passed out.
