Tour Diary March 19, 2007
Monday morning….bright, early, and I overslept. Not destructively so, but I lost about a half hour. I had my alarm on my phone set for 6:45am so I could get up and shower and shave, leaving enough time for Mike and James to do the same, get packed and get checked out and ready to jet by 8am for our 8:30 show. Well, my phone battery decided to run out before my alarm went off and I woke up at 7:15 when James’ alarm went off. I took what was probably the quickest shower of my life, shaved and got packed up, as we all did. And we still managed to get out and done on time, with even a moment of video footage of our pimped out room.
We did our first show for Mt. Airy Middle School and it went over fairly well. Not amazingly so, but not horrible for a morning show. It was a slow start but ended well. Then we did our magic, a super fast tear down and pack, and headed to the next school, Mt. Airy High School to setup for an afternoon show. This setup was off to a rough stop just seeing the hill Phil had to get the trailer up to unload. As per usual, Phil made it happen, and we got setup in light speed as we do. This show was an auditorium show as opposed to our usual gyms. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantages to an auditorium are most notoriously better sound, and the fact that usually there is a video screen, so that is one less cumbersome thing to have to setup. The disadvantages are the detachment from the audience, and specifically on this show, the lights being on you makes it harder to see the audience.
Well, we played the show, and the response here was less than amazing. Probably because it was a high school, where generally most kids are more like “whatever” anyway, and because it was an afternoon show. Generally afternoon shows have more excitement, but not so much with high schoolers. They just want to go home usually. And that seemed to be the case here. After the show, as usual, we tore down and packed up. The SRO took us to the original home in Mayberry that Andy Griffith grew up in (711 Haymore St, Mayberry, NC FYI) which is now a bed and breakfast. Then we headed off to our next spot. We were ironically heading back to just outside Asheville again to Brevard, NC. We have two shows scheduled for Wednesday. After the obligatory Wal-Mart stop, we were on the road again.
James drove most of the way there with me co-piloting. After re-fuel I drove the rest of the way into town. We ended up staying at Econo Lodge just off the highway, about 20 miles outside of our destination due to cheaper lodging. As it stands, we’ll have Tuesday off, 2 shows Wednesday, and then a week and a half off that will probably be spent in Florida. That’s the story for now.
We did our first show for Mt. Airy Middle School and it went over fairly well. Not amazingly so, but not horrible for a morning show. It was a slow start but ended well. Then we did our magic, a super fast tear down and pack, and headed to the next school, Mt. Airy High School to setup for an afternoon show. This setup was off to a rough stop just seeing the hill Phil had to get the trailer up to unload. As per usual, Phil made it happen, and we got setup in light speed as we do. This show was an auditorium show as opposed to our usual gyms. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantages to an auditorium are most notoriously better sound, and the fact that usually there is a video screen, so that is one less cumbersome thing to have to setup. The disadvantages are the detachment from the audience, and specifically on this show, the lights being on you makes it harder to see the audience.
Well, we played the show, and the response here was less than amazing. Probably because it was a high school, where generally most kids are more like “whatever” anyway, and because it was an afternoon show. Generally afternoon shows have more excitement, but not so much with high schoolers. They just want to go home usually. And that seemed to be the case here. After the show, as usual, we tore down and packed up. The SRO took us to the original home in Mayberry that Andy Griffith grew up in (711 Haymore St, Mayberry, NC FYI) which is now a bed and breakfast. Then we headed off to our next spot. We were ironically heading back to just outside Asheville again to Brevard, NC. We have two shows scheduled for Wednesday. After the obligatory Wal-Mart stop, we were on the road again.
James drove most of the way there with me co-piloting. After re-fuel I drove the rest of the way into town. We ended up staying at Econo Lodge just off the highway, about 20 miles outside of our destination due to cheaper lodging. As it stands, we’ll have Tuesday off, 2 shows Wednesday, and then a week and a half off that will probably be spent in Florida. That’s the story for now.