The Adventures of Battery Man

I’m a big fan of Ernie Halter. If you don’t know him, he is a wildly talented Nashville-based singer-songwriter that even had Justin Beiber cover one of his songs. He also happens to be a really nice guy. I had the pleasure of seeing Ernie play a show with Gabe Dixon recently in Virginia. Don’t even get me started on Gabe Dixon, who’s self titled album has been playing in my truck for 3 years non-stop. Needless to say, I had been looking forward to this show for several months. 
So Ernie starts his set, only to have the battery in his guitar die in the middle of what was only his second song of the evening. Like a true pro, he sets his guitar down, beat-boxed an even 8 count and picked up right where he left off sitting down at Gabe’s piano and played it like it was born for the ivories.  I was wildly impressed thinking to myself that most musicians (including me) would have panicked in that situation, let alone make it part of the song. After the song, he asked if anybody had a 9 volt. Not so oddly, nobody had a purse full of batteries in the front row. But I did! Well, not in my purse. But I did have some old batteries in my guitar bag outside in the back of my truck. I had no idea how old they were (since my guitar goes through about 1 battery every several years), but I was looking forward to being the hero of the show. I proudly set them on stage next to Ernie while he played his next song on piano. He then gave me a shout out, swapped out the battery and started playing his guitar to a loud applause. Hell yeah, that applause was for ME! And I didn’t even have to play a note! I was riding high for four and a half minutes, thinking to myself that I saved the night. 

Turns out my battery was piece of crap. It died the very next song. Disappointed, Ernie gave up on the guitar and killed it on piano the rest of the night. He is a PRO. And I can’t even be the Battery Superhero (Battery Man of course) that I so desperately wanted to be. Sorry Ernie. I’ll do better next time.
 

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