Dreamville, SC

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Wednesday night out and drive to Greenville, SC. From hearing about their house and stage, we started referring to it as Dreamville. The house is beautiful. Something like 2000 seats, 2 balconies, the stage was like 58’ wide at the pro, as many linesets as we could have ever wanted, tons of flyspace. I would play there every night if I could. The crew was on top of things as well- non-union, but playing by union rules. Not only where they good at their jobs, they enjoyed it.

At every venue, with every crew, I keep expecting people from our local. Coming around a corner or when I walk in. Some of the people I’ve run across remind me of people- Cathy, Poncho, Silas, Kevin- no one like Poof though. (Dale, tell him hi for me please) It’s kind of weird. I’m sure a lot of them are a lot like us, or their relationships are like ours.

I love Greenville! Probably my favorite town yet. The house was amazing. The crew was great. Restaurants were good. Small town feel. There’s the huge park behind the venue that looked like Riverfront (Sarah said it had the falls and bridge and everything.) I saw it, but never got to go because I didn’t have time. There’s also a zoo! I got really excited and wanted to go, but no one would go with me. Kyle said we could check it out; then he took it back. All in all, I was pretty disappointed to not go. But, throughout the day, there may have been some polar bear sightings, as well as a loon.

The first part of load in went very quickly and smoothly. After lunch, a lot of things went downhill, which seems to be the trend. I worked straight through dinner (didn’t ever get around to eating) and still there were mistakes. But I had a moment yesterday morning when we were working and making lots of progress and everything and I looked around and my heart smiled as I thought, “I LOVE doing this!” I was totally in mode and loving it. That was fun.

During sound check, I was focusing lights and all the kids were on stage practicing. It’s always fun because I get to dance with them and sing. Florence was singing her solo and I was behind her singing. She put the mic up to me and she and I did a duet. I think I maybe even hit a few of the notes 😉

I was pretty stressed the later it got. When we got together for cabina (which is our codeword for prayer- it means butt in Luganda), they radioed me to go to the stage door. I was fried and just stood where I was and hollered “I don’t know where the stage door is!” They heard me and got me there. When I arrived, Sarah said “look at you, you’re fried.” At that point, I had been working 11 hours straight. Anne asked me how everything was going or if everything was done or something and my response was a big smile and “I hope so. We’ll see.” Her response was a slight chuckle and “I love that you’re still smiling about it.” It was a reminder of what I always tell my students- fun is what you bring with you. How you look at something affects what it will be. It was also what was keeping me sane and from over-stressing or crying.

The show went pretty well, possibly our best yet. Still working on comm issues and stuff. It was really nice to not have no out.

There’s one part in the show where the three adults sing an amazing song acapella. The audience started clapping with them, but they were sort of off. I wasn’t really watching, just listening and trying to figure out what was going on, and I heard the crowd laugh. Robert and Prossy on stage started clapping and keeping beat trying to get the audience to. It was quite funny.

A school show this morning. Not quite as smooth as last night. Somehow, in one of the end cues, the house lights got programmed in. So, there’s 2 cues in a loop that each run for 3 seconds and go back and forth, so the house lights went up and down and up and down with the movers on stage. We’re all on comm trying to tell me to take the house out and nothing is working and we’re all cracking up.

Now we’re in Talladega, AL. Back to BAMA!

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Comments

[dave]

Forrest
Smith, watch out for Forrest Gump when you are in BAMA. I am writing this slowly, cause I know you are tired. So read it slowly. Love ya, Dave