But I want to tell you about the day first.
2PM.
It felt a bit like the morning before a wedding. We rolled into the hall for the scheduled "load-in" at 2pm. Everything seems pretty low key, the guys were relaxed and feeling pretty good, and every once in a while you could see that glance on Mike or Wayne's or Andrew's face, the one that saw the evening ahead, anticipated, rehearsed, and rolled over each chord, lyric, beat again and again.
Man there is a crap load of little stuff to get done before a concert! The CEO in Rob was rising to the surface just below the skin, his organisational skills, acquired in a former life, were being called up to get the wheels rolling. The rest of us do our share of the schlepping but then skip out for coffee. Being well intentioned, we busy ourselves paving the road to hell as we let Rob enlist various people to get various things done by various times.
3PM.
We are done most of the schlepping that we can do, the green room is occupied by really cool people talking in really hip ways, ways that remind me that I have never been nor will ever be as cool as them, (sigh) but I am too old to really give a rat's ass at this point. We share the room with them and they work till four while we try to hang out and look halfways productive. Everyone is doing their own thing now just killing time and staying calm.
Is it really only 3:47? Five hours to go...
4PM
Bernie, head of the whole shebang gives us the go-ahead to start sound check. Simon, our fantastic sound guy, starts to work his magic. Sara's band goes first, Sarah starts her first song and everything stops moving. Its as though any sound right now would be an affront to the soul, she sang like she was just freed. Man this is going to be good.
5PM
Some of the volunteer flight attendants arrive. They are decked out in highly complementary fashion for flight attendants, I am obviously flying the wrong airlines. They are so bright and quick, they are a welcome diversion as we wait...
6PM
Its starting to get close, there's a lot more chatter and buzz in the hallways, people milling around, old friends of Rob and Big Mike show up. I am meeting a lot of new people, Meagan, our head flight attendant, Joanne Roberts from CBC Vancouver, our first officer. Joanne will be introducing both bands in full air force flight uniform, (yes there is something hot about a woman in a uniform.)We chatted them up. We were their tackle dummies for line rehearsals, really anything to make the time go faster... really its only 6:14PM?
7PM The house manager is in place, some of the early birds are starting to mill outside. Doors open at 7:30.
We head to the craft table to stuff our faces with tabouli and chicken. Careful not to overeat, boys, we will be singing shortly. ( is this like swimming, never eat 30 minutes before going on stage?) We can hear people starting to roll in to the theatre at 7:30 ish. Butterflies for dessert anyone?
8:10PM
Curtain goes up, Joanne intorduces Sara Merrieros trio. Sara blows away the audience with an eclectic program of fado, jazz, blues and a little country. The audience loves her. She sells out all of her CDs at the break.
9:15PM
Go time. We take the stage and I can hear my heart beat in my ears. The applause is enthusaistic and generous. This audience wants to have fun! Time to give them something to clap about.
The songs flow easily, the crowd is warm, they are enjoying themselves. Time for me to join them, settle down, settle in, let the groove of the music cut its way through the air and spill out over the stage edge. Sometimes I find myself getting lost in it all, it seems unreal...watch the pace boys, keep it on the rails.
Before I know it, we are on the last song. That was it? Holy crap that went by quickly. We wanted it to slow down, we had this thing going with the audience and we didn't even get their number...ok take a bow and get off. Well, ok one or two more, thank god you asked, we worked on the encore songs quite a bit, hoping you would.
OK, we are done, and the night is over. What a joy, relief, panic, killer good time. Every one was so awesome who helped. It was like throwing a really great house party and all your friends showed up to pitch in.
So a big thanks again to them...
CFUV 101.9FM, Monday Magazine, The Spiral Cafe, Westshore Hearing Solutions, The Victoria Cool Aid Society, the ticket outlets: Ditch Records, Lyle's Place, Performance Bicycles. Special Thanks to: Megan Branson Jo-Ann Roberts - Host of CBC Radio's All Points West in Victoria Spencer Rieu Wendy Wall, COC Publicist And our ground crew including Sue and Arielle Regimbal, Ursula, Julia and Wayne's friend, Margaret,... Alice Hawes, Faro and Armand for the Green Room, Devour and Patisserie Danielle for Green Room food...and to each and every person who came out to see us. You are why we do this. Thank you.
Ok, it's now official... STEREO BANG BANG CAN BE PURCHASED AT CDBABY.COM, DITCH RECORDS @ 635 JOHNSON STREET AND LYLE'S PLACE AT 770 YATES STREET IN VICTORIA, BC.
(end of commercial, back to the regular programming of your life.)
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