'Twas the night before tour...

Hot damn diggity. It's finally here: The Bristol Suspensions US Tour.

Eleven-and-a-half-months-ago, when I was a bald, wriggly fledgling of a cappella, I remember trawling through the audition sheet for The Bristol Suspensions, slyly exaggerating my vocal range on paper and putting ‘really good at whistling’ in the ‘Other Skills’ section. Then, right at the bottom of the page, I saw the sentence: ‘please tick this box if you would be available to go on tour to America in September 2017’. Pfft. As if. As if this would actually come in to fruition.

Well. I look like a right willy now, don’t I? Because here we are, the evening before our 16.50 flight to Boston Logan Airport. You would’ve thought that with an entire year to prepare we’d be all ready to go, right?

1.15pm: I put on Miley’s Party in the USA for packing motivation, but this just gives me the urge to watch the First-Gen Suspensions’ cover of the song. Now I am watching the 2015 VoiceFest set, mesmerised by Dan’s old haircut, all the while my mountain of a cappella T-shirts is no closer to being inside my suitcase.

3.43pm: Note to self - doing the ‘make it rain’ thing with dollar bills does not make me feel as gangster as I thought it would. It does, however, result in dollar bills getting stuck under the fridge, thus leading me to discover that baby carrot I dropped down there after a Fringe rehearsal three weeks ago.

5.27pm: I turn to the Whatsapp group for inspiration. This proves to be a futile exercise, as 90% of the chat has transformed into a Taco Bell appreciation forum, and the other 10% is comprised of last-minute panic over SIM cards and travel documents.

6.21pm: Dan asks someone to write an introductory blog for the website. I heave myself up from the nest of unfolded laundry (which is still nowhere near the vicinity of my suitcase), brush off the crumbs from airplane snacks which I inevitably devoured two days before the trip even began, and hurl myself at the opportunity to 'pack-crastinate' even further. I ask some members of the group what they are most excited about for tour:

‘Everyone being obsessed with our accents.’

– Dan Mailer, musical director.

‘Everyone being obsessed with Stanford.’

– Jonny Simon, not-the-beatboxer.

'Taco Bell.'

- El Leaper, who organised the tour around Taco Bell locations.

'To see what this Taco Bell fuss even is. #tacowhat'

- Alice Tyler, hashtag enthusiast.

'I'm excited to confuse all the Americans with the word 'bin'. I'll be like 'is there a bin?', and they'll be like 'what y seyin gurrrl' [sic]'.

- Yasemin Gezer, resident gangster of The Bristol Suspensions.

‘Disappointing all the girls groups with our relationships.'

– James Dempsey, voted aca-player 2017.

Will our British accents make the people of America fall for us? Will I ever stop binge-watching Game of Thrones and pack this damn suitcase? Keep your eyes on this blog to find out!