How far away have you ever gone to get to an event or show?

We went from Oxford to Sheffield for the Primal/Scream Orb Miner's benefit show in '92. The funniest thing about the actual show was the rumour that rippled through the queue to get in that the Sheffield Arena security were going to be, like, really heavy on people with drugs so all the students (our party included) were guzzling as much as they could beforehand in a state of nervous panic. I hope it helped them enjoy the Orb more than an only mildly stoned I did.

But it was the first time we'd all done something cool together as first-year students and that vibe was better than the gig. The buses only ran from Sheffield to Birmingham on the way back so we spent the whole night walking around Brum shivering, posing for stupid photos, and pointing at stuff. We all had fucking horrible special blue sweatshirts on which we'd bought en masse at the gig.

It's still really not very far to go at all though. ;)

I saw Terrastock 2 in San Francisco, but I'm not sure if that counts...the point of that trip was more of a case of getting away from the dreariness and gloomy weather the midwest for a week or so.

There have been a number of artists who I love which I will not go see live, because they have chosen to play at a venue in the state that I loathe for a couple of reasons, one being that the acoustics are terrible, and the second reason being it's over a couple of hours away from me. If the sound there wasn't so terrible I *might* consider driving that distance, but as it is I would consider it a considerable waste of time. Especially since I hate driving...

Leicester to Glastonbury 1999 - in one of the most unusual ways. Left Leicester Wednesday night with friends in friends car, arrive Harpenden (Herts) an hour later. Stay over. Leave Harpenden, and friends Thursday morning on train. Make genuine error on tube, and end up having to pay £10 upon alighting at Oval.

Meet friend from Built to Spill mailing list, and spend all day drinking. See Built to Spill/Modest Mouse/Webb Brothers in evening, and return to friends house.

Arise bright and early on Friday - over two hours until my booked- train leaves Paddington. Quick breakfast, walk to the station. Still an hour and ten minutes to go. Take the circle line. Oh dear. What a mess. Parts of it are closed. Trains break down. Next train full. Time is ticking away. Arrive on platform at Paddington as train is leaving. The classic "movie" scenario.

Pay small excess for direct train, and manage to get a seat (booked train had a transfer at Bath). Works out better. Try friends mobile to arrange meeting point. No answer. Leave message.

Eventually arrive Glastonbury. Phone no signal. Never meet friends. Get food poisoning on Sunday. Collapse at St. John's Ambulance tent. Revived - dehydrated. Taken to station, given money to get home. Arrive home, cared for by (ex) girlfriend.

Total cost: £350.

I've travelled to DC on a couple of occasions specifically to see Poem-Cees perform, once from Boston and once from New York. Ironically, I've missed them both times they came to Boston to perform.

I strongly urge everyone to check out their website, particularly the RealAudio samples. Then write them and DEMAND that they sell you a CD. They're that good.

I suppose the americans are bound to have the edge on us on this one, cheltenham to exeter to see suede seemed quite a long way at the time...(it's about an hour and a half on the train)

I suppose my best one was Bowlie. Because i hadn't got my arse in gear when tickets went on sale i ended up going with some people i didn't know from leicester, so i had to get the train from chelt to leicester and then we drove to camber from there. It was relatively pleasant on the way there, we went over the blackwell bridge and everything, but the way back was hell on earth, mainly due to my drinking twice my body weight in boouze over the weekend, so although the journey was about twice as far as it should have been it just felt like it was never going to end...

The length of the Weymouth-London main line plus a short distance of the Underground, many times.

Am I a total loser freak, or will I just use any excuse to travel?

It's tied between a couple- I've flown from NYC to London and then on to Amsterdam to see the Dandy Warhols. (I figured I was never going to see them in a venue as tiny as the Garage again)

I've flown from NYC to Portland, OR, then driven 5 hours up to Victoria, then across to Vancouver to see Sloan. That was a pretty mad trip. We saw them in a 150 seat student center one night, then a couple of thousand auditorium the next.

I mean, yeah, I will string together other stuff to do while I'm in town, but I wouldn't have gone in the first place if it wasn't for the show.

And I assume we're not counting touring with your own band, are we, cause that just about beats everything I've done to see other bands...

K

ottawa --> new york to see glenn branca's piece-of-crap 12th symphony last summer. with my only contact in new york totally occupied with moving back to canada, the city wasn't much fun either.

Hey, can we count stuff that we've actually performed in? Because I've travelled a lot of places for choral gigs:
- Twin Cities to Chicago
- Twin Cities to DC
- Boston to Cambridge/London
- Boston to Witchita/Kansas City/St. Louis/Memphis/Tupelo
- Boston to Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka/Seoul/Kwangju/Injon/Taipei
- Boston to Vancouver/Seattle/Portland/Walla Walla, WA/Bellingham, WA
- Boston to Cambridge/London/Freiburg/Hannover/Nuremberg/Wiesbaden
- Boston to Philadelphia/Richmond/Bel Air, MD/DC
- Boston to Lenox, MA
- Boston to New York
- Boston to Amsterdam Yes, I'm bragging shamelessly. It's part of my charm.

From the Upper West Side all the way down to the Village to see the Go-Betweens.

I'm not really into the whole "travelling" thing ;)

From Chicago to LA for Radiohead. Then, this coming summer, from Chicago to Oxford for Radiohead once again.
Errr...*prepares to be eviscerated*

doesn't really count but a funny story anyway:

With a group of other journos I was flown — c.1987? — from London to Marrakesh for a PRESS CONFERENCE (plus two days eating and loafing), courtesy his late majesty Hassan II of Morocco, who had decided he was going to instigate a yearly Pop Festival. We were there, in effect, to read the set lists, go home, write it up fabbily, and then come back with the hordes of tourist youth who would descend on Marrakesh, to watch — only name I can recall, perversely enough — hopeless French hard-poppers Telephone, and presumably many others.

Anyway, we had a nice two days, sunning and stuffing ourselves (inc. a meal at the hotel Winston Churchill always stayed at: all I recall of this is just a MOUNTAIN RANGE of sliced roast meat, so vast none of us felt well even looking). Then we came home.

And a week later Hassan II called the whole project off, because the massed teens of Morocco did so collectively badly at their O-levels.

(Or baccalaureat, or whatever...)

And no yearly Pop Festival in Morocco to this day.

mid '80s - donington rock festival to see ozzy, motorhead, the scorpions, def leppard, warlock - went on a ROCKBUS!!! - great fun - furthest i'll go this year to see a band is ROXY MUSIC at newcastle arena - i iz well provincial.