Ah, the passing wheels. Many memories of those - we could usually hear a slight change in the highway hum when the bearings on the gear trailer seized, and then watch like a hawk for the sailing wheel, track where it went in the ditch, pick it up, pop open a can of greased wheel bearing from Canadian Tire (always carry lots), replace the bearing, pop the wheel back on, and Bob’s your uncle. Life on the road…
My old band Shockra had a number of vehicle fails. The most spectacular was on our way to our first Colorado tour in the winter of 1992. We played in Rochester NY until 4AM and hit the road for Steamboat Springs. About 10AM, as we were passing Painesville OH, our right two rear wheels on our 24' box truck went flying off at 60mph. We had put a wall up in the box with the gear in the back and a section to hang out in the front part, with mattresses, reading lights, etc. We skidded to a halt on the shattered break drum by the side of the road (the gouge in the pavement was there for years). It was early February and started up with the freezing rain. The cops showed up and wanted nothing to do with us, but did call a tow. The tow truck showed up, but it was one designed for cars, so it left. About 20 minutes later, a late 50s Mack tow truck for trucks showed up. The guy hooked it up, pulled the lever, the truck rose to a few feet and the cable snapped. The tow guy then fixed the cable in the freezing rain, cursing in Czech. He finally got it all rigged up and went down the road with our truck. His sidekick gave us a ride in a van to his shop/junkyard. It was a Saturday morning. He told us to go away for 5 hours, so we wandered around Painesville and got kicked out of diners, etc. Finally, we went back and he had gone to 3 other junkyards and found the parts to completely rebuild the back end. The total of the bill was about $750, which was insanely reasonable. So, we gave him about $400 in cash, $200 on our keyboard player's credit card and the rest in a check we asked him not to cash for about two weeks. And some T-shirts, stickers, and CDs. Bless Franz Lubeck.
This being the days before cellphones, we had lost track of the other vehicle, which we planned to meet at the first rest stop west of Cleveland. That wasn't happening, so we made our way to Steamboat and arrived the next day about 30 minutes before load in. The other vehicle had just pulled in. They had accidentally stayed on I-90 and made a detour in Wisconsin. Since we'd never been to Colorado before, we weren't familiar with the driving conditions, so they decided to cut through Rocky Mountain National Park, completely unaware that it was closed for the winter and ended up in a field surrounded by elk, so they had to do a very long detour to get there.
And then there was the time a porta-potty came through my windshield while on the way home from a gig....
