WE DROVE 11 hours to play at the Council, Idaho, music festival – not for the money, but because we played there last summer and had the time of our lives. To subsidize the trip, two-thirds of the band had left a day early and played three shows in Reno – two nursing homes and a coffee shop – $280. Just about enough to cover our gas and sandwiches and one motel room. The rest of the time we slept in tents.

With all due respect for 89-year-old ladies in wheelchairs (the core of our loyal fan base), come 8:45 Saturday evening, on an outdoor stage before throngs of eager cowboy hat-sporting Idahoans of every single sex and age group, we were raring to rock. To the best of our rockability. Our ukuleles were tuned, our kazoos waxed, our pennywhistles and steel drums spit-shined ...

But to fully appreciate the all-out Spinal Tapitude of what follows, let me point out that Council, Idaho, a town of a couple hundred people, is the county seat of a county without a single stoplight. Warranted or not, a big-city junk band scratching out old-timey music is big beans to these friendly, fun-loving folks. We went over so well last year that this year they gave us the coveted next-to-last slot.

At 8:45 it was starting to get dark. As they introduced us – "all the way from San Francisco" – the stage lights came on for the first time, and we plinked into our opening number.

"Took my wheat down to get it ground / Man who runs the mill said the mill's broke down."

A gust of wind blew our bass player's bass off its stand, and his hat went flying across the stage. One of the speakers almost fell. The guy who had just introduced us lunged to steady it and would spend the rest of our set clinging to this speaker's tripod. He lost his hat too. It lightninged in the distance, thundered, started to rain. And by the end of our first song the throngs of people on the lawn before us had disappeared.

But there was some applause. We couldn't see anyone, and we could just barely hear anything at all over the wind-whipped plastic pennants and the rain pelting the makeshift roof over the stage. There was at the far end of the park a sort of strip of tarp-covered seating near where the vendors were selling corn dogs and corn on the cob and such. Those who hadn't mad-dashed to their cars had apparently sought refuge under this tarp.

I didn't know what to do, but my brother, our fearless leader, launched into the second song, and – for lack of any better ideas – the rest of us jumped right in too. We'd driven 600 miles to play this gig. Just for the fucking fun of it. I glanced over at our host, holding up the speaker, and he looked sick. But there wasn't any more lightning at least, or it wasn't getting any closer.

In the middle of our third song the power went out. Amps, lights, the P.A., everything. I, personally, stopped playing. But my brother Chris, the consummate performer, kept right on singing and strumming, and the rest of the band, in the spirit of show-must-go-onmanship, didn't miss a beat.

Turned out this was the best thing that could have happened. "If you can't hear us back there," Chris shouted, pointing to the foot of the stage, "you're just going to have to come back up here."

They did! Kids danced around in the rain, laughing, and adults huddled under the blankets they'd been sitting on, pre-storm, and the show went on. It was almost even a disappointment when the electricity came back. But the crowd stayed with us and the rain let up and everyone was happy.

I dedicate this happily ended story to Annie Rite Spot, one of our rocking town's rockingest bartender-bookers, in exchange for her turning me on to the Sandwich Place. It's on Mission and 16th, and it's a great hole-in-the-wall with two little round tables out on the sidewalk. I ate there late this morning after getting all the sleep I didn't get this weekend in Reno and Idaho and so on.

Godzilla special ($5.25) is a chicken teriyaki sandwich with mixed greens, red onions, tomato, and lettuce. Damn, damn good. Chris got a giant BLT ($4.35), which he said was very well-proportioned and delicious, in addition to being twice as big as one BLT he had somewhere for almost twice the price.

Well, I don't know where he's been eating BLTs, but the Sandwich Place is fine by me. I'm sorry, I just can't do this friendly little joint justice in the few words I've got left. So you go. You have words. Do it justice.

Sandwich Place. 2029 Mission (at 16th St.), S.F. (415) 431-3811. Mon.-Fri., 6:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat., 6:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.

Email Dan Leone

Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).