Well, Fairmont, West Virginia nearly takes the cake from St Albans in the UK as being a bad, bad town to tour through! Troy, their main & only tech guy said that we shouldn’t even be in the venue & I tended to agree with him. The venue was basically the same style & shape as the Studio Theatre back from my Ballarat Uni days!! Troy was like Leo Getz - the Joe Pecsci character from the Leathal Weapon movies - even in look & kept going “Ok, Ok!” He wasn’t at fault & went out of his way to ensure that Dan & I were getting something remotely to what we wanted & needed. He even hired in a whole new mini PA (sound system) for Dan!! Still, every time I hit the ‘Go’ button on the console, a lovely hum carried through the speakers until the que had completed!! Nice!
The show was very well received & just goes further to strengthen the moral of theatre - that the audience is seeing it for the 1st time & doesn’t know that it should look & sound better, that there is limited to no production elements at all. The clincher for me was I was controlling the 2 x Spots thru the desk!! I hate doing this!! Being on a Spot, you should be in control, then you have the subtlety of fading in & out. Hated it, absolutely hated it!!
The other true American experience we were hoping to be a part of on the Sunday when we arrived in Fairmont was watching the Superbowl in a sports bar. Yelling & screaming & barracking for the New York Giants out of respect for the Joyce crew. Denied!! There ain’t much in Fairmont & sports bars that are accessible to our hotel… don’t even think about it!!
So we took over the hotel bar, changed both TV sets to the Superbowl & made our own fun. The waitress was annoyed that she was working as she was supposed to have gone home but had to stay back to cover someone who had called in sick so, as she said, “I ain’t no good at making drinks so standby for generous pours. Tonight you’re drinking the profits!” And how!! Finally a ray of sunshine in the desolate wasteland….
It was the first time I’d watched a full match & although I enjoyed it, I wouldn’t race to watch another. 1st half was fairly slow but the last 5-10mins of the 2nd half was insane! It looked like the New England Patriots, who were undefeated the entire season & were aiming to be the 2nd team ever to have a ‘perfect season’, were going to win & then the New York Giants quarterback, Eli Manning, threw a massive pass & the game turned. Booya!!
Tis all for now but stories of mechanical bulls, Tooters, Gumbo, the whole New Orleans rxperience & meeting up with my little Brother for our "vacation" awaits....!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment