mood: thirsty
music: The Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want
A few days late, obviously.
Currently headed home on one of Prevosts finest buses. We’ve done three shows total so far this season, one in Florida, one in Canada and one in Nebraska. Florida was tough – it was really warm with a dew point of about 72 F. (”Air You Can Wear!”) The local production guy was a giant pain in the butt. He is apparently Superman and can see in the dark, and so he decided to be extremely vocal (repeatedly) about how we didn’t need these darn front lights goshdurnit, I can see everybody just fine. (Side note: it was dark. The guy was wrong.) Our production manager finally let the guy know in no uncertain terms that now was the time to Be Quiet, and the night progressed hindered only by the oppressive atmospheric conditions.
The Calgary show went off without any major incidents, though I did almost get a nightstick to the face from a gaggle of over-zealous security guards, of whom there were many. (The large “ALL ACCESS” pass I wear around my neck at all times is ambiguous, I know) The ratio of security to us was approximately 10:1, reflecting how seriously Canada is taking its violent crime problem. The lights provided were a pleasant surprise, 13 MAC 250 Entours, 5 MAC 600s, 4 Atomic 3Ks and a bunch of Chroma-Q Color Blocks. They provided a GrandMA Ultra-Lite, which suited me just fine: I loaded up a previous show that I had used a bunch of Entours on and cloned the fixtures to the existing show, updated the LED layout and focus positions, and ran the show without a hitch. Unfortunately it started to rain a few minutes into our show, but fortunately Canadians are a robust people and their love for Terri was greater than their dislike of the rain, so they stuck it out like troopers. The first single off the new record (Gypsy Boots) was and is being well-received, and that show was a joy.
We again ran into rain on the Nebraska show. Mother Nature, being the devious force that she is, gave us nothing but clear skies and pleasant breeze all day until a few minutes before our show, when she let loose with a torrential downpour that soaked our audience and caused a mass exodus of patrons, except for the plucky 700 or so out of 2500 that stayed. I got thoroughly soaked – I had to make my way up to the roof of the lighting area where the spots were to help the spot ops get tarps over their spots, and had to improvise a way to prevent them from blowing away in the rain. (Always keep string handy, it comes in useful in so many of life’s situations.) Thankfully none of the water found its way into the the large PAR rig that was half-hanging out in the rain, all the lights were still working an hour later when the rain stopped and the show continued. It was a good night, though soggy.
Exit, stage left.
Sparks