drum_shotgun

Come summer, the roadways and highways of Australia become crammed with vans transporting musicians to the various festivals dotting the landscape. Sanity has to prevail, obviously, otherwise anarchy will, and you just don't want to think about the consequences. One method of avoiding anarchy and revolution within the rarified confines of the touring van is the passenger position known as shotgun, which is simply the position in the front seat next to the driver.
Possibily the biggest festival event of the summer is the Big Day Out, an event which sees a battalion of vans transporting an army of performers around the country. We asked a few of those performers to give us a rundown of their rules for riding Shotgun.

GENERAL RULES FOR SHOTGUN
The person riding shotgun must always remain alert and entertain the driver. On long distance drives (over say 200km), shotgun gets rotated by a roster system. Shotgun controls the stereo who plays DJ and everyone gets three requests.
If travelling in a non-hire vehicle, automatic shotgun gets allocated in the following order:
1) owner of the vehicle
2) girlfriend/boyfriend of owner of vehicle
3) person who knows directions of where you are going

PHIL KNIGHT- SHIHAD
The numer of times we've driven up and down the Hume Highway (the main highway linking Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in NSW), the Pacific coast, freeways and other assorted highways are too numberable to remember. When soley the band shares the driving responsibilities of a particular vehicle it is Tom Larkin and Jon Toogood that do the driving. Karl and I don't have licenses. Tom seems to do a bit more driving that Jon so I guess that would make Jon the main shotgun-rider because whichever one isn't driving claims the passenger seat and it's added comforts. They are the ones doing all the work behind the wheel, so they continually tell us. Being regulated to the back seat Karl and I are often refered to as the children, but we have quite a giggle over that. When Jon is riding shotgun "stereo nazi" is undoubtedly the term that would best describe his reign over the music, volume and selection and reselection of various radio stations. Come to think of it, it's like that whenever he is in the car. One of Jon's shotgun responsibilities would have to be the bantering to Tom about the various speed and power related inadequacies and capabilities of the particular vehicle being driven.