You know what they say. If it ain't one thing, it's another thing. I think there's a lot of truth to that. Somehow. Also a lot of vagueness to it, so that makes it much less powerful when you think about it.
Anyway, last night we played at Junior's in downtown Round Rock, Texas! That made our second show in a week - after Carousel Lounge last Saturday. There was a storm brewing and Juniors was an outside gig, so we were a little worried about rain. Our worries were exacerbated when we met the guy playing after us. It seems he was struck by lightning while onstage in Chicago a few years back. He wasn't seriously injured, but nonetheless, it probably wasn't something he'd like to relive.
As we began cranking out the magic onstage, Robert's banjo suddenly and mysteriously cut out. You would think that an instrument with such a long, rich history would be the last thing on the stage to have technical difficulties, especially since we have that one key-tar/digital-ridoo solo in the middle of one of our songs.Robert appeared to be fine, as usual, but if you looked just close enough - you could see a slight bit of frustration (see picture) in his face. He took a short break in which the music was noticeably less cool. The rest of the Posse continued to play, but the tension was building as the crowd became restless - even chanting "we want banjo" over and over. We began to fear there might be some sort of revolt and/or riot (as big a riot as you can have with a crowd of 16 people).
Then, from out of nowhere, Robert appeared with the Dobro. We hadn't seen Robert break out the Dobro since the famous and terrible "Possum Posse Dobro Feedback Incident of 2009." Instantly, he began laying down a steady stream of slide-steel goodness and the crowd was placated. They didn't seem to trust the dobro at first, but gradually, it's undeniable awesomeness won them over and they couldn't get enough!
It turned out to be a great show. The guy who played after us ended up getting struck by lightning again, which was unfortunate/hilarious. But as they say in the music biz, "If it ain't one thing, it's another thing."
