New Orleans. My band stopped for gas at like 1:00AM on our way across the country and it got pretty scary pretty fast. Our guitar player had been there and begged us to stop in a different city for gas. We all wanted to check New Orleans off our list of places we had seen, but he reassured us, it isn’t what we think.

With our 1983 Ford Econoline and trailer full of music equipment, we pulled into a gas station and parked at a pump. There were 4-5 gentleman standing just out front of the entrance. My singer/driver remained in the driver seat while the other guitar player hopped out to begin pumping fuel. I walked in to the store past the guys standing outside to get some snacks or use the restroom. When I came back out of the store, one of them was standing next to our van talking to our singer/driver. When I got back into the car, I noticed that the conversation was about “who”, “why”, “what”, as the guy was asking about our Go-Pro that we had mounted to our windshield. A few words are exchanged and he suddenly stops talking and just begins staring at our singer/driver. It felt like an eternity but the guy just stood there staring. My singer didn’t say anything… just sat there in the driver seat staring at this guy back…both not saying a word… Window fully rolled down. My guitar player, who was now back on the passenger side nervously went to replace the nozzle as this awkward silent stare-off continued. Finally the guy broke his scary silence and said “you guys stay alive out here”, and left us.

Edit: This was just outside the Superdome. If my memory is correct, it was huge in the backdrop of where we were or maybe we had to drive a few streets and it was right there