Who'll stop the rain? No one. But we have tarps.

Last weekend, we traveled to the town of Gatesville to play a private gig for a Memorial Day weekend party. Well, actually, we traveled through Gatesville to a ranch just outside of town.

Our GPS faithfully led us all the way to town, through town, down a country road, then as we got to a fork in the road, with nothing but rolling landscape on either side, it announced, "You have arrived at your destination." All we could think was, "I hope not."

Johnny called the host, who guided us from where we were to where we actually needed to be. He led us over a very cool, but we feared rickety bridge, past a totally tricked out mailbox, up to giant red, steel gate with a code box. We drove through the gate, and there was a house to the left, and for just a moment, we wondered if that was our destination. It wasn't. That was the caretaker's house. To get to the main house, we had to drive a gravel road through the property, which was beautiful.

I wanted to take pictures of all of these things, but we didn't want to be late, so we didn't stop to take snaps. But once we got there, I was able to get the camera out. When we arrived at the main house, we were greeted by this sculpture:

Communication is everything

It has come to my attention that I have a blog. Or I used to. If you don't write a post for six weeks, I think they take it away - so, I better hurry and post.

Okay, so this week's life lesson is that communication is everything. Several weeks ago, Johnny told me that we had an "Upper Decks gig for Rocket Electrics." Cool. I put it on my calendar: May 19. Upper Decks. Rocket Electrics.

It was a big tour of folks in town for a convention (or something), and they were doing a hybrid electric bike tour - Lady Bird Lake, foodie and music all rolled into one. I didn't find out the actual time until the day before - 4:00pm. Johnny helped with the actual bike tour, but I'm crazy busy with my day job, so we agreed I'd just show up at the end for the concert. At Upper Decks. At 3:30pm, so I could set up and be ready to go when the tour arrived.

Upper Decks is a sports bar located just south of the river. It, predictably, has several outdoor decks that folks can sit on to watch sports and eat food. At 3:30pm, I arrived in the parking garage next door. I unloaded the guitars, texted Johnny that I was there, and I walked down to the front doors of the restaurant. And this is what I saw:

Hmmm. Well, that's an issue. I texted Johnny about the situation, and he told me to check with Nicole, the owner of Rocket Electrics to see if she wanted to do the show in another location. I did that, asking if she wanted us to do the concert at the rooftop location where we usually do tour concerts. She said yes. I sent a text to that effect to Joe, who said he was already there, and what's my ETA?

Already there? What the hell, man? Good thing the location got moved, or I would've been here by myself when the tour got here!

It was only when I arrived at Rocket Electrics that I discovered that Upper Decks, the restaurant, has been closed for months - and Nicole and John (Rocket E's general manager) were already aware of this. They did not hire us to play a concert at Upper Decks. They hired us to do a show on the "skydeck" (as John calls it) - or the "rooftop" (as I call it) - or the "upper deck" (as Johnny calls it).

Johnny wasn't saying we had an "Upper Decks" show. He was saying we had an "upper deck" show.

Thank god we planned for me to get there early. I managed to get over to Rocket Electrics and unload the guitars in time to get set up on the rooftop before the tour arrived.

I'm normally a "right on time" kinda gal - get there precisely when I have to so there is no extra time left to kill when I might be forced to socialize, particularly with strangers. I know - it's messed up that an introvert makes a living on stage. But that's a post for another day. Today we're talking about the wisdom of Johnny's "always be early" rule. And the importance of communication.

Luckily for me, I now know that Upper Decks is dead and gone, so this particular miscommunication will not happen again. So, I don't need to worry about being early next time, right?