No live music experience can match a Texas dance hall on a Saturday night with a hot country band on stage and a roomful of people two-stepping around a hardwood floor. When that dance hall is the Old Coupland Dance Hall and that band is Mike and the Moonpies, you have officially arrived in Honky-Tonk Heaven!

Working out a road trip itinerary that would get me from a Cody Canada show in Gun Barrel City, Texas, to a Blackberry Smoke show in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I found a Mike and the Moonpies show that fit perfectly. Little did I realize how life-changing that decision would be.