Needless to say, in conducting a successful wedding band, make sure that you bring your instrument to the gig.
It's happened to me I admit it, but when you play thousands of shows it is bound to happen at some time or another.
The last time and hopefully the last time it happened was about eight years ago. I was still living and touring out of Athens, Georgia (via Watkinsville) and I scooped up the band in the Econoline and trailer and headed toward the Chetola lodge in Blowing Rock for a wedding reception.
It was a very nice affair and I learned a few jazz tunes to sing and 'What a Wonderful World' for the first dance.
I had spent all morning cleaning the van and trailer and was very proud of my work until I realized as we pulled into the snowy driveway of Chetola that I had left all three of my guitars laying in the yard on the far side of the trailer.
It's usually a mic stand or something like that, but this time it finally was the guitars.
Luckily, Blowing Rock is only about 45 minutes from my hometown of Morganton, so I called an old musician buddy and procured a telecaster guitar. He was on the way to work and dropped it off with my Mom who jumped in the car and drove it up to me.
When she got there we were in about our fifth song with me standing there singing without my guitar, feeling like an idiot. Luckily John Wayne Tuggle still played guitar with me, so he was able to hold the rhythm down while I was guitarless.
The funniest part of the story is that the strap on the guitar was native american themed with torquoise and feathers which didn't match too well with my formal wedding attire. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
