Bands on the run

First the rehearsal was for 9pm then I found myself rushing across the city to be there for 7.30pm, only to arrive one hour late at 8.30 pm. I didn't understand the change in time and was feeling too rough to ask. When we arrive, instead of rushing into the rehearsal studio to start work, I had a big cold beer thrust into my hand and taken out to a balcony in the warm night air where the moon hung like a silver plectrum in the sky about the city. I succumbed and chatted, for the first time, to the people who would be my Brazilian Neurotics. Here I was plied with more cold beer and asked if I wanted to smoke too, which I declined. Slowly, I began to realise what was going on, there was a band in the studio rehearsing and they would finish at 9pm and then we would start work, but the boys who are to play with me, are such big fans of the Neurotics that they couldn't wait to meet me and wanted to party before we start. This is a world away from the puritanical approach I take when working with other musicians, a beer is something that you earn after you finish playing not before and during, but hey, when in Sao Paulo!

Then I am told that the band currently in the studio will be playing in a club I will myself be frequenting the following night and they are doing in their set, two Neurotics covers, Wake Up and Kick Out The Tories. They want me now, to sing with them to rehearse both numbers.

Let me think here, I have a stinking cold, I have two days of rehearsals with my band and then four successive gigs, my voice is already fragile and now I have another band to rehearse with.
However, the welcome I got at the studio was phenomenal, I was treated like a long lost brother and this band had put so much work into doing these two versions to please me, that I could not refuse. So I started work with my first band of the evening. It didn't start well as there was something wrong with Wake Up, parts of which I couldn't sing, I couldn't hear myself either and my voice was beginning to crack. We brought my volume up and then I moved us swiftly on to Kick Out The Tories to see if there was work to be done there too, but no, they had properly cracked that one. So back to Wake Up.
 We tried a couple of things but I was expending to much energy on them and I told them so. I explained that I was unwell and that I needed to reserve my energies for the main rehearsal. As a final gesture, I slung on my guitar, quickly tuned It and then showed them how I do it. I must admit that as their versions of the songs were a translation from another key to another they had done a pretty good job and now I played it in front of the guitarist so he could see what he needed to do. But no more rehearsal time left for them so they must try the adapted version on the night with me on vocals hoping that it has been sorted. Kick Out The Tories will be terrific though.

Now, the moment of truth, will the band I am to be working with for the nex three weeks be any good. Are they too drunk, am I too drunk, am I well enough to do this long session in a hot room, we shall see. I place my fingers on the frets to prepare to do our version of Wake up...