09.28.2013 - Caddo Street Grill - Cleburne, TX

Happy Sunday! Now, let's talk about last night...

I am going to start off by saying that yesterday had all the ingredients for a really REALLY horrible night. I got a call early in the day from my drummer, Cisco, letting me know that he had a death in the family and was concerned about our show next weekend as he may have to go to Minnesota for a funeral. Ok, life happens, we'll deal with it. The good news was that he would be there tonight. Well, kind of...

Since this was our first time at this venue and we were having an opening act (who would be using our sound system), I asked everyone to be there a little earlier than usual. A few minutes after 7pm, I get a text from Cisco - dealing with funeral arrangements, hoping to be there by 7:30. 7:30 comes and goes... finally, around 8 he arrives. Whew, ok, everything else was setup, just had to get him in place, do a sound check and we'd be fine. Wrong...

So, he gets set up and finds that, amidst all the family stuff he was dealing with, he forgot to pack the pedal for his bass drum. That's a bad thing. A very bad thing. So, he sets up and says he's going to run back to Fort Worth and grab one and be back in time for us to go on at 10pm.

9:12  a text comes in... "see if you can have the opener play an extra song to two to buy some time... on my way."

9:48... "Sorry, not gonna make it by 10."

9:54... "Probably another 30 to 45 minutes..."

10:15... "Burleson."

10:34... "Cleburne city limits."

10:43... "5 minutes away."

Meanwhile, at 10pm we've got a room full of people wanting live music. Heath and I are pretty much stressed out beyond belief. Finally, we had to make the decision to fire up the drum machine and play "something" in case it was going to take even longer. So, we sucked it up, explained to the audience that there had been a family emergency going on all day, told them what was happening, and then we started playing.

About 2 or 3 songs in, here comes Cisco. I'm pretty sure you could hear Heath, Brian and I sigh of relief all the way to Dallas. Cisco puts his bass pedal on, sits down and we kick on the full show.

Maybe we need more drama like this in our lives? We played better than we've probably ever played as a 4 piece. About the 3rd song (with Cisco) we noticed the crowd was starting to have a lot of fun, dance floor started filling, the beads started flying and it turned into quite the party.

What started as a really bad night ended up being one of our best shows to date. We got a lot of comments from the staff that they really enjoyed it, had a lot of people sign up for our mailing list, and Caddo Street asked us back for a return visit towards the end of the year. Can't complain about that!

On the way home, as I play video car arcade to avoid the drunks on the road, I started laughing out loud about how crazy this kind of life is. Then I laughed even harder at the thought that I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

This was my first time in Cleburne. Nice little town. Highway 67 seems to be proving a friend... same road to get to Glen Rose. Same type of genuine people. I look forward to 67 again in October at Hollywood & Vine.

On a side note, I gotta tell you about this girl that opened for us. I say girl because, as I heard it, she just turned 17. As Heath, Brian and I were standing there watching her, I jokingly said, "crap, I don't want to sing after her." Yeah, she's really good. I expect we're going to be hearing a lot more from her in the future and we hope to play with her again, for sure. Check out some quick clips I shot of her from the side of the stage to hear her voice. Still amazed that she's only 17. Thanks to Marti Ludwig for booking this show months and months ago and thanks for putting us in contact with Jade!

Ok, kids... I've been good all weekend. It's Sunday and is finally past Noon so all us sinners can finally buy beer in Texas. Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend and I'll be talking to you again after our show next week in Forth Worth at Chubby's. Until then...

Stay gold,
RH