GoodTimes Tour

The GoodTimes Tour was a concert tour by American rock bands in support of GoodTimes, a surf video directed by Taylor Steele. The tour features bands from the video's soundtrack, including Pennywise, Blink-182, Pivit, Unwritten Law, 7 Seconds and Sprung Monkey.

Background

GoodTimes (1995) is a surf video directed by Taylor Steele (filmmaker), who also desired to put together a national tour featuring bands from the tape's soundtrack.^[1] The tour began in Southern California and headed across the southwest, into the southern states (including Florida) and up the Eastern Seaboard, ending in New Jersey.^[2] The tour extended in Australia in December 1995. Blink-182 were initially unable to go, as they had little money and plane tickets were prohibitively expensive; the members of Pennywise helped out and bought the band's plane tickets.^[3] In early 1996, the bands performed in Alaska, and headed back out on tour in February 1996, playing two final weeks with the GoodTimes tour on the West Coast.^[4]

Blink-182 drummer Scott Raynor recalled the tour fondly in 2010: "Honestly, the shows went well. We always got a good reaction, and the next time we came around we had more fans and better floors to sleep on — some with carpet!"^[5] Hoppus' sister, Anne, made T-shirts and described the tour: "Any money made goes back into the gas fund. You only have five dollars and it has to feed you all day. You eat nothing but crappy fast food, or on a good night, Denny's."^[6] "I had to wear earplugs while I slept to keep the cockroaches out of my ears, sometimes I had to wear earplugs so I could sleep while people came and went buying drugs," remembered Raynor.^[7]

Incidents

The bands often sped on the highway in order to secure a perfect position to moon the other bands' vans,^[8] sometimes shooting Roman candles at each other.^[9] "There were plenty of times I laughed until I cried," said Raynor.^[10] Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge was arrested for underage drinking on Halloween 1995 in Jacksonville, Florida.^[5] Manager Rick DeVoe was able to make arrangements to post bail and plead DeLonge guilty to the misdemeanor, ending the whole fiasco before the tour had moved on minus one act.^[11] Another incident took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which became an all-out bar fight.^[12] Concerned by the level of force used by bouncers against the fans, tension had quickly spiraled between security and the crowd; words were exchanged and soon after fighting broke out.^[13] "It was crazy […] that kind of thing happened a lot," said Raynor. "Not always to that degree but there is an underlying tension at punk shows between the fans and the bouncers who signify authority."^[13]

On one occasion, Blink-182 planned to meet with representatives from Mushroom Records, the Australian distributor for Cheshire Cat. Meeting at a posh Australian restaurant, they arrived with a drunken Rick DeVoe in tow, who proceeded to take off his clothes and dance completely naked outside for all the people he could see inside sitting on the other side of the glass.^[14] DeVoe was loud inside the restaurant, and eventually attempted to start a food fight as well. The evening closed with Pennywise vocalist Jim Lindberg urinating under the dinner table.^[15] The final Melbourne date found one of the band's team drinking heavily and running around the city completely naked, and DeLonge once stripped naked in the middle of a party.^[13] "It was packed with people and everyone was dancing; which was weird because every party I've ever been to, people just stand around and nobody dances," said Hoppus. "Tom comes in and he's super drunk, so I ask him why he doesn't get naked and start dancing. So, Tom gets full on naked and starts dancing. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The whole room just cleared out. All these Australian people got up and left."^[13]

Early 1996 saw Pennywise, Blink-182 and Unwritten Law trekking to Alaska to perform and compete in a King of the Hill snowboarding contest.^[3] Late that night, DeLonge and Raynor decided to play a prank on Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise, who was infamous for his own pranks. The duo planned to break into his room and dump a bucket of snow on him, but they were greeted at the door by Dragge, who sprayed them with water.^[16] Although they thought that was the end of it, Dragge busted down the door of their room (although it was locked and bolted shut) and attacked the group.^[16] DeLonge escaped to the bathroom and bassist Mark Hoppus ran outside half-naked. Raynor bore the brunt of the revenge, and was backed into the corner and doused with Mylanta, "shot" with squirt guns filled with hot sauce, and shocked with a contraption devised from a car battery.^[16] In addition, the members of Pennywise threw all of Blink's belongings out the hotel window into the snow. "Our manager Rick was in the room right below us […] he looked out his window and just saw suitcases and clothes flying by. He knew we'd been hit," remembered DeLonge.^[16] Pennywise also pranked Unwritten Law: they set off multiple fire extinguishers in their room, covering everything in white powder.^[4] Hotel security and local police arrived, and although the bands were allowed to stay the night, they were banned from staying ever again.^[4]

Tour dates

References

• Hoppus, Anne (October 1, 2001). Blink-182: Tales from Beneath Your Mom. MTV Books / Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-2207-4. 
• Shooman, Joe (June 24, 2010). Blink-182: The Bands, The Breakdown & The Return. Independent Music Press. ISBN 978-1-90619-110-8. 

Notes

External links

• Blink-182 Official Website