Lesson learned in the weeks after greeting our guests: Rock ’n’ roll is a gamble. It’s not fun like everyone always says except for when you win, or stick around long enough to come back from behind.

Also, there’s no team in the sport—not in rock, not in roll—and almost certainly never in: rock ’n’ roll tour. Sorry to break the news, it’s every band for itself. Always. If only to varying degrees.

The setbacks suck. Just ask the lads from Australian pub-punk rockers the Chats, whose flight from Melbourne delivered them a day late and barely in time for their soundcheck at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl (coming to a town near you) for the first night of their tour supporting Swedish garage rock institution the Hives. By then the Hives’ road crew—who dress as ninjas—had already been promoted to the Chats’ dressing room in their absence.

The airline lost the Chats’ gear, and the band found that renting a backline in “Music City” at the last minute is about as chill as nabbing first dibs on a Townes tune at the Honky Tonk Highway open-mic orgy.