Road Rash

It seems natural to follow up my last blog with a reflection on the ARL band's little "Tour of Texas". It was a blast, I must say, and it was great to get even the tiniest taste of what life must be like as a professional musician. I guess it's just like anything else, but I suppose the highs are much higher, and the lows are much lower than say, an office job.

To give you an example of a low, we showed up at our first gig to find a dance floor full of 70-year-olds sipping on coffee and straight whiskey. The house music was Gene Autrey and Hank Williams, occasionally becoming so modern as a 90's Garth Brooks tune. No sweat for Los Mustangs, who saved our butts by giving them pretty close to what they wanted, although a bit louder than they wanted it. It would have been difficult to stay within the volume requirements of these senior citizens, and they let us know pretty consistently throughout the first two sets. At some point though, as if by divine intervention, the old folks cleared out, and a slightly younger audience trickled in.

The night ended up just fine. I stuck to my internal commitment to play my original songs come hell or high water, and the new crowd responded well. By the time we left, I was doing Allman brothers covers and even signed a CD for an enthusiastic, somewhat boozed up fan. A huge contrast from Tim telling me "You're gonna need chicken wire, boy" at the beginning of the show.

The last show of the tour was at a place called "Crossroads" in Fredericksburg. Talk about a high. We ate great food, they loved Los Mustangs and the place was packed when I went on, filling up even more throughout the night. Then a bachelorette party and a bridal party showed up, and things got borderline out of hand. We ended up playing an extra hour and a half to a standing room only crowd. If that were what being a road musician was like all the time, I could do it for life.

At the end of it all, I can't say I would have changed anything. To have a perfect experience would have given me doubts about my choices in life. To have had all miserable gigs would have been, well, miserable. I got a good taste of both sides, and a renewed faith that I haven't wasted my life away by working.

Sarah and I spent the Sunday we should have been driving home at what has become one of my favorite places on earth, my buddy's ranch in the hill country. We drank cold beer, floated in the Guadalupe river, and listened to some good friends talk about their days as road musicians when things weren't quite so......calm.