It’s 3:45 pm. A little over 3 hours from sound check, and almost 8 hours until our set is scheduled to begin at midnight. The rehearsal we had this afternoon went well. We kicked the rust off of our set and ran through the two new songs we’ll be doing with a guest vocalist. All signs point to tonight’s gig being successful, and morale is high. But there’s a lot of down time between now and then for things to go wrong. Our front man is also the show promoter, and he’s got a ton of things on his plate, like coordinating with the other acts on the bill and entertaining the friends and family who came in from out of town to see us. During rehearsal I could see the fatigue in his eyes. And this sinus thing that has been kicking my ass all week shows no sign of easing up before showtime. By the time we go on all I’ll want to do is sleep. I’m not sure I’m going to make, but not making it is NOT an option.

This is the life of a musician, I suppose: figuring out how to turn it on when the switch is stuck in the off position. It’s amazing how fragile the whole thing is. Getting four people to agree on a vision and to figure out a way to make it happen is hard work. It doesn’t take much for things to fall apart. I used to think that bands only broke up when something bad happens, like the singer forcing his wife into the band or the drummer stealing money or something. But there are so many reasons why things might not work that have nothing to do with people being dicks to each other. Finding time to rehearse, figuring out how afford the gear you need, convincing people to let you play, building an audience that cares about what you’re doing, finding motivation when life is beating you down…the list is endless.

To be honest, though, these are really nice problems to have. When everything comes together, man is it worth it. Soon I’ll pack up my fancy new pedal board, the guitar I wanted more than anything when I was 16 and now own, and the amp I built myself, and head to a packed house to perform music I helped write. This is all I want to do with my life.