I knew it was too good to be true!

So the last few posts have been all about how easy this tour has been. I don't believe in "jinxing", but hoo boy...

We were focusing our lights Thursday afternoon when the crew started having some issues. Things spiraled down more and more as fixes were attempted, eventually leading to a literal melt-down somewhere. No one is sure if it was the lighting board, the wiring, or gremlins, but all of a sudden nothing was working - after several hours of prepping and planning.

Most of us left mid-afternoon; a few stayed to help but left in the early evening. However, we heard the theater crew was there until about 10pm. They were able to jury-rig up some lights to make the two school shows work this morning, and seemed in pretty good spirits despite the late night. Now the question is if they can get in replacement lights and equipment before the concert tomorrow night. We all feel pretty bad about what they're going through, since they've proven themselves a very competent and eager crew to work with and this was no one's fault. Fingers crossed!

As for the school shows, both crowds were heavily weighted on the junior high side of the spectrum, which can be the hardest demographic to perform for. Often that age range tends to have the most class clowns and "too cool to behave" kids. So when both groups showed themselves to pay attention, gave us respect throughout the whole show, and had eager volunteers, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised. We even had a small group in the first show give us a standing ovation, something that never happens at a school show!

And that leaves us with one more day of tour; we'll pick up our 8th member flying in on a red-eye in the morning, have some time before the show, then find out what the lighting situation will be. I probably won't blog again until Monday or Tuesday as we have a red-eye flying back to San Jose on Sunday morning. Wish us luck!