For me, the worst thing that can happen at a gig is to lose my voice. I came back from Florida with that allergy/sinus thing, and whatever it was, it hung around to make Friday’s show at Cache Creek sound stuffy and Saturday’s show nearly disastrous (not for the band — the groove was much better the second night and the audience really enjoyed it — this is just a personal performance thing). Hitting the high notes on “Any Way You Want It” is already challenging enough and I don’t always make it, but we cut it outright Saturday because there was no chance. On the third song of the first set, I started to lose notes in my range — just cracking and dropping out. I leaned over to Kimzey and said “We are in emergency mode from this point forward.” That means if anybody else wants to sing in the band, they should feel free to step up, because we still had roughly 40 songs to go. By the end of the night, I was croaking; Kat brought me hot tea, lemon, honey, and cognac (!) which helped me survive, but today, it just hurts to talk.
Today is my 12th wedding anniversary and I am giving Kat the greatest gift I can: I’m going to shut up for once.