Traveling Musician PT. 1 - Icy Conditions Cancels Show

Hello everybody and welcome to HAIR IN THE AIR, The Official blog of The Midnight Devils and 3D In Your Face.  What an adventure we had last night.  I didn't get around to writing the blog before we left for the weekend and I'm glad I didn't.  Now I will give you a first hand look at what it was like for us on 120 mile sheet of ice in Northern Missouri.  Before we get into the details at this exact moment we are still scheduled to play tonight at The Kross-Eyed Kricket in Odell, NE.  All things considered this is going to be one wild night and I know you are looking forward to some craziness after all the stress.  Show will begin roughly at 9 PM.  Sunday we are doing a very special benefit show at The Lookout Lounge with Aorta Music Management.  Wreck The Halls is a two day benefit to raise money for Harper's Hope and Inner Beauty Salon at The Methodist Hospital in Omaha, NE.  A few years back I stumbled upon a hair salon for cancer survivors.  This is one of the coolest places in Omaha if you want my opinion.  They help survivors with wigs and beauty therapy.  We are always thrilled to help out Inner Beauty Salon and look forward to an amazing night of action at The Lookout Lounge.  My radio show also called Hair in the Air, on 101.9 The Keg will be bumped back to 12 AM tonight because of the Creighton game.  Tune in live and get your faced rocked off.

If you are just catching up with us than I will start from the beginning.  Last night The Midnight Devils were schedule to play in St. Joe, MO at The Rendezsous Bar with Coverboy.  I would also like to thank John Riha of Disciples of Apollo Promotions and our amazing fans that braved the weather for all their help.  What started as 120 Mile down 1-29 problem on any other night.  Let me preface this by saying we have never cancelled a show ever.  We picked up the van around 1 PM and I knew there was going to be some bad weather.  We  was figured on it would only stay in Omaha and that things would get better as we headed south.  We loaded up the van and hit the road by 2:15 PM.  Heading out of Omaha the roads were starting to get wet but we pushed on into the unknown.  Out on the interstate the rain never let up and 50 miles down the road we made our first stop in Rock Port, MO and we knew we were in for some rough times ahead.  All the concrete had turned into a sheet of ice.  Inside the truck stop travelers were talking about how traffic had come to a stand still on the interstate right outside of St. Joe due to an accident.  At this point what were we supposed to do?  The show was still on and we were already halfway there.  We saddled up and cruised low and slow.  About 10 miles from our exit we hit the stand still.  For an hour everyone just sat there on the interstate.  It was about that time that we got word that roads in St. Joe were so bad that they had no choice but to cancel the show.  We were devastated but there was nothing we could do.  We took the first exit off the interstate which lead us down a dark road that was littered with semi-trucks and cars in the ditch.  By the skin of our teeth we swung the van around and made it back onto the interstate.  Another few miles down the road we, along with hundreds of other drivers, crash landed at a gas station that was not equipped for this many people.  With one bathroom inside we filled up the tank, grabbed a few snacks, used natures bathroom and pointed the van back north towards Omaha.

Sniper took over driving duties for this leg of the trip.  What was only supposed to take an hour and half landed us another three hours in the van.  It was slow going and with nerves of steel he had the van moving closer to 50 mph the whole trip back to Omaha.  After 8 long hours in the van we finally landed safe and sound in Omaha, a bit defeated but everyone was in one piece.  We found out later that the crash that had backed up the interstate near St. Joe had killed two people and injured 9 others.  That was weighing pretty heavily on our minds as our trip concluded for the evening.  Now this story isn't anything special or different.  There are bands all over the country that are braving terrible road conditions every night to make the gig.  It's something that you do and don't even think about.  Every year we go through a few shows were you secretly wonder if it's worth the stress to even be out on the road.  It sucks but it's part of the job.  You knew what you were signing up for at the beginning of this.  Every band has those stories of white knuckling it on a dark interstate trying to get back from a show.  Most importantly we didn't want to let any of our fans down by cancelling a show.  The song actually goes "It's a long way to the top if you want to Rock N Roll".  After last night I'd like to change it to "It's an icy way to St. Joe if you want to Rock N Roll".  This is still the greatest job in the world and I wouldn't change it for a minute.

ALWAYS LOUD
FOREVER PROUD

Sam Spade