Toronto’s Tokyo Police Club have revealed to LimeWire Blog they nearly missed their opening set at Lollapalooza last weekend after their van broke down. According to guitarist Josh Hook, their vehicle went kaput in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a small town about 30 miles south of Nashville, and the band was temporarily stranded.

“We have AAA, so we called and told them our van broke down and that it was probably undriveable,” reports Hook. “They dispatched a local tow truck operator to come pick it up. When he got there, he assessed the situation and said we wouldn’t get to Chicago. We couldn’t afford the time to fix it or have it shipped, so we gave it to the first guy who came along. Luckily for us, we had the van’s title on us and we signed it over to him on the spot.”

With no rental cargo vans available in the small town, TPC’s tour manager and sound engineer hailed a cab (apparently they do have them in Murphysborough) and headed to the airport in Nashville and rented two cars. Once the pair returned to Murphysborough with two sets of rented wheels, the band packed up their gear and embarked hours behind schedule on the seven-hour trek to Chicago.

“We knew we’d get there slowly and that it would be early morning when we did,” says Hook. “We checked in about 5:30 in the morning—the same time a lot of people were going to sleep, so I guess we missed out on some serious partying.”

Running on almost no sleep, the band got to the venue, had a quick sound check and opened the festival. “At the beginning of the set, there were about 20 people there. But the organizers are pretty smart how they stagger the sets. After just a few songs, it went from 20 people to about six or eight thousand. It was definitely the biggest crowd we ever played for. I normally don’t look out at the crowd when I’m onstage, but the one time I did was during ‘Citizens of Tomorrow’ when we try to get the crowd to be our rhythm section. I could see people waiving their hands in the air all the way to the back. Everybody there was into it. We played our full 45-minute set, and I liked the surroundings better at Lollapalooza than Coachella. Chicago reminds us of Toronto; it felt like we were at home for a day.”

The boys spent the rest of the day catching sets from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Spoon and hanging out with touring buddies Cold War Kids. “We heard Eddie Vedder was [backstage], but we didn’t get to hang out with him or anything,” Hook laughs. “In the end, it was definitely worth playing despite all of the trouble it took to get to Chicago. We hope we’re invited back to play again.”

TPC play sold-out gigs at Bowery Ballroom tonight and Monday (there’s also a show tomorrow at Maxwell’s in Hoboken). After four days off at home in Toronto, they head to Europe to play a string of European shows and festival dates.

In other TPC news, the quartet just signed Midwest indie-rock Mecca Saddle Creek. “We’re pretty excited about it; they’re really friendly guys. It feels like we’ve just joined a big family. We talked to as many labels as possible to get an idea about what was out there. Saddle Creek approached us first and they held on until we signed with them two weeks ago. They’re clearly the best fit for us and they have a great roster. We’re very excited. Our plan is to record when we have some time off from touring in December, so maybe people should look for a February 2008 release date.”

Image via TokyoPoliceClub.com