ATLRetro

Barbilicious performs with LUST. Photo courtesy of Barbilicious.

With Blast-Off Burlesque’s World Tour about to take off this weekend at 7 Stages (if you haven’t bought tickets yet, book ‘em here! Only two more shows on Sat at 7:30 p.m. & 10:30 p.m.), we asked those gorgeous gals and guys about their craziest real-life travel experiences. And did they have some stories to tell—from wicked weather to dodgy directions.

In the third of this three-part series, Barbilicious was having a great time on tour with her band LUST until she headed to a rather unusual gig in Canyon, Texas…

Road Trips with my band LUST have always brought surprises, victories, defeats, and just plain weirdness. We used to take an annual West Coast Tour and go from Atlanta to the West Coast and back. A big loop that rolls down to New Orleans, then up through TX, NM, AZ and CA. Texas is a HUGE state, so in between Houston, Dallas, Austin and our favorite El Paso, there are little entertainment-starved places like Canyon, TX.

Canyon is a beautiful place located in Central TX, and cold as hell in February. After a wonderful show in Lubbock, TX, where we played for a couple of Black Metal dudes and their girlfriends in a room in a house, and had a grand tour of Buddy Holly‘s high school gym, we are looking forward to what Canyon would bring. Of course, we are pretty much broke, gas is expensive, and we need to get to the next place, so anywhere to play is always going to be better than not playing, right?

Dickie Van Dyke & Barbilicious. Photo credit: Derek Jackson.

Where’s the gig? It’s a little ambiguous, but we do have a phone number. After some phone tagging and crackly connections, we get directions. This was before smart phones and Google maps, so we get to pull out the ole’ paper one. Why that seems to be right in the middle of a State Park. Another call, wait don’t go there, go here instead. Why, that seems to be another State Park. It’s getting dark, and really cold, it’s 28 degrees, and yes, we’re playing in a State Park. Illegally.

There is more confusion, what gazebo will we be playing at? We need one with an outlet. There are no lights, the park is closed, it’s fucking freezing. After winding around the park, we finally pull up to a gazebo, where our headlights catch glimpse of a young punker pacing back and forth, all bundled up, and waiting for us to arrive.

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