Sissy & The Blisters Tour Diary: Part 5

Chapter 5: BLISTER BUS BREAKDOWN – Day 4 – London (attempted)

Everyone looked pretty much how you would imagine in the morning. There were a few uncomfortable goodbyes before we walked to the van to “Get the hell back to London”. We were greeted by a girl who claimed that one of us had said we’d give her a lift to London. An offer she would later wish to have turned down. We travelled for a bit out of Manchester with the James swigging cans of Fosters (Australian breakfast) and the Annoying Girl saying things like “I wish I had my laptop so I could show you the music video I’m in,” and “I might hang out with my friends band while I’m in London…The White Lies…heard of them?”

Suddenly there was a loud whistling and smoke started pouring through the blowers. Ed screeched “IT’S ON FIRE!!” so we pulled over onto the nearest roundabout. Everyone jumped out of the van immediately and in a series of sprints and dives, got to safety. On refection it probably wasn’t going to explode and we’ve probably just watched to many action films. But it’s good to be safe.

We called a mechanic to come check it out so naturally a paramedic showed up. He stared at it for a bit before calling the police, who stared at it a bit and called a mechanic. 3 years later they turned up…we had aged a bit, but the van was still broken, so we hopped into the mechanics man wagon and drove onwards to a first stop of many, many, many stops (it wasn’t fun). Now let’s not forget about our little stowaway, she’s decided at this point perhaps her choice to tag along to London was in vein, and asked to be dropped off.

For a while we were kidding ourselves that we’d make the show… and we were so close until Barry the recovery driver decided to take a 3-hour pit stop in Birmingham. After that, the evening was pretty much a write-off with no way of getting anywhere.