After living in Murfreesboro for nearly three years, the coolest thing I have ever seen organized in this town was the 2010 Tour de Fun.

Imagine over 300 kids all coming together and piling on bikes of all shapes and then riding through the entire town. The trail of bikers started with a cookout at Murfreesboro Outdoor and Bicycle and then rode to eight different houses before ending the night at the Temptation Club on Halls Hill Pike. This was a wild day and to be completely honest, not every single detail can even be recapped in a simple article.

So instead, I am going to approach this story as a timeline of the events that occurred throughout the day.

5 p.m. – MOAB
Burgers, hot dogs, energy drinks and a range of other food were available for all of the MOAB attendees. There were shows going on in the alley directly to the right of the bike shop with bands like Profit Nathan and The Lake. The staff of MOAB was also selling $1 raffle tickets for some sick bike merchandise from the store. The only catch was that the raffle would not take place until the very last stop of the tour. So in order to win, you had to stick it out until the end of the day.

6 p.m. – Murfreesboro Public Square
Tyler Walker grabbed his infamous megaphone and called out for everyone to get on their bikes and line up. Hundreds of maps showing all of the tour stops were passed out to all of the riders. As a ceremonial beginning to the event, the tour leaders took everyone on a couple of laps around the town square. This massive group of bikers filled the entire square before turning right to go down Main Street. At one point I looked behind me on Main and could not see the end of the line. Cars were filled with people shooting videos from their camera phones and waving at the parade of two-wheelers.

6:30 p.m. – Elrod Street
We Were the States was the first band to kick off the afternoon. The singer, Justin Webb, joked, “The next house stop is in Woodbury so drink a lot of Gatorade.” Then the band played “Red Lion” to start its set.

6:45 p.m.
Three-piece collaborative, Def Chik, played five quick songs that featured a range of genres from indie-pop to alt-country to punk. Jay Stoyanov, guitar player for We Were the States, stayed up front to do the vocals for Def Chik. The size of this room could barely fit everyone inside so the windows were left open so that everyone in the yard could still hear the music.

7:10 p.m. – 2nd Avenue
The air was filled with stress when everyone pulled up to find out that the band was missing a cable and was questioning whether or not they could play. Worse yet, due to illness or scheduling conflicts, half of this next band had to be temporarily replaced by guest members.

7:30 p.m.
Hannah Barbarians went on at their scheduled time. The guys thanked Tyler Walker for putting everything together and began their show. This was another small living room and was completely packed to the brim. Jeremy McAnulty looked really stressed as he sang through a couple of songs, but he delivered a solid performance despite the circumstances. At one point, he even pulled out the megaphone and used it to scream out the lyrics of “Home.”

8 p.m. – Ewing Boulevard
While not originally billed for the tour, The Thank You Ma’ams, played an acoustic show with three guys performing some sing-along country jams in the vein of The Avett Brothers. They replaced a drum set with stomping of their audience on the hardwood floors and covered Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.”

8:15 p.m.
The lights went off and the fog started rolling over some crazy blue and purple LED bulbs that were illuminating Body of Light. The two brothers played a series of songs with wild beats on top of which the two would scream, sing and play bass and guitar.

8:30 p.m. – Highland Street
Technikiller, which is only two people, killed the set. These guys were incredible. The guitarist was trading off between really fast math leads and then throwing in the occasional strum and scale patterns.

9:15 p.m.
Yoseph Y La Zilla was a one-man project that sounded like there were about 15 people involved. This room was so packed for this show that it was almost impossible to even see what was going on. People were lined out the door and into the backyard.

9:30 p.m.
Hanzelle fused the power of a rock band with a calming trance vibe. While playing cello and singing for the majority of the show, Casey Kaufman also made a rap debut during the show. Her voice was played through a mixer to sound incredibly deep and she did all of the lyrics as Hanzelle performed a cover of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize,” followed by a Talking Heads cover.

9:45 p.m. – Greenland
Both Lazer Slut and Brown Swarm set up their DJ equipment on the front porch and all of the bikers stood out in the yard to watch them perform. This show was pretty brief and unfortunately too quiet to really get into. It was still a nice change of pace for everyone to stay outside and dance around to the DJs.

10:15 p.m. – Spring Street
The crowd filed into a really large basement that was perfect for this type of show. The two members of Turtle Bangs had kind of a droning, dirty rock sound, which showcased a lot of guitar soloing and thrash drums.

10:45 p.m.
The mood changed drastically when Day Kids came up next. Like many of the other bands to play this evening, they were also sure to give a shout out thank you to Tyler Walker for putting the evening together. Day Kids did three of four songs that seemed a little underdeveloped. Minus the occasional screaming, the band kind of sounded like a developing indie-rock MGMT of sorts.

11:05 p.m. – By Blue Coast Burrito
As the biker entourage was leaving Spring Street to enter Memorial Boulevard, a police officer pulled to the side of the road and completely stopped the lane of traffic to let all of the bikers out. No one was sure if he had been tipped off or simply saw everyone and decided to help. Either way, this was an awesome move.

11:15-11:45 p.m. – Clark
The next house we stopped at held the show in a garage that was facing the back yard of the home. While the show was going on, lots of kids were wandering in and out of the house. Most of the music here was hardcore with lots of screaming. My lack of taste in this kind of music led me to take a quick break to go inside and chill out for a few before we headed out to the next stop.

12 a.m. – Sadler Court
Duperocho played in a living room with a crazy tapestry as a backdrop. There was caution tape running along the walls and colorful strobe lights shining over the crowd. The set was all down-tempo electronic stuff with live drums and guitar played overtop of the beats in a really elegant delivery.

12:30 a.m.
Gentleman’s Club followed with a really impressive instrumental set. I had briefly heard of these guys but wasn’t sure what to expect at all. This was a very pleasant surprise to find that they had put together some really elaborate material.

1 a.m. – Greenland
Honestly, this last house was a mess of events. In a matter of one hour there were three performances, a mosh pit, and a fight, and I somehow managed to lose my shoe and sprain my ankle.

The first performance was by Reid Young under the name Fake Brad. This whole show was put together with Game Boys and electronic toys that were used to make the sounds of the music. This was a really interesting show and probably the most inventive performance of the whole day.

Then Squirrel Sheppard did an 8-bit thrash/punk set, during which things started getting crazy. Everyone began slamming into each other and dancing to the music in a full-blown mosh pit. At some point during this crazed music party, three guys took their shirts off and started getting really aggressive. During his performance, Charlie Hareford actually got punched in the eye by one these guys. (He survived with only a small black eye.)

1:30 a.m.
Meth Dad was a one-man performance headed by the man who put Tour de Fun together—Tyler Walker. In a chaotic display of scream/singing through a megaphone, Meth Dad ran around and collided with members of his audience that were just as crazed and excited as he was. Mixing electronica, experimental rock, random noise effects, chaos, composed beats and psychedelic bass lines together can give some slight description of what Meth Dad’s music sounded like. Furthermore, simply watching the show is just as delightfully entertaining as listening to it. Meth Dad was wearing his signature uniform—one pair of Speedo underwear and one glittery vest.

2 a.m. – Temptation Club
Wayne Pollard did the final raffle drawing and gave away all of the great MOAB prizes. Then everyone made their way inside for a free drink or two that the club was providing for the event.

2:15 a.m.
The final performance of the evening was a hip-hop (sort of) show by Diaper. This was a pretty long set. I honestly did not last long enough to see the end.

10 hours of biking + over 20 bands + 11 stops = A lot of fun.

Hopefully we can all look forward to Tour de Fun 2011.

For further information, the majority of these bands can be found on Myspace Music.

Photos by Langston Gatewood and Landin King