Friday, August 15, 2008

Rainy Kansas



What a day! We had a nice day off in Kansas City, which consisted of a nap, a run (in the rain), dinner, and a movie (Dark Night). Alicia and Aaron Bravo from San Diego flew in and joined us for dinner with Neil Halstead, his band, Rachel (tour manager for Rogue Wave) and the movie. Alicia and Aaron have connections to the Johnsons through Kashi, Kokua and Aaron's art and were able to get backstage passes for the show, which are not available to volunteers generally. It was great to have them at the booth since they are star RAP volunteers, but also they are the only friends from home to get a real look at life on tour (with its lack of glamor!) Aaron designed the special edition concert poster for the Raleigh show and when Jack came by the booth, he asked Aaron to autograph a copy for him, and then autographed one himself for Aaron. We felt lucky with the weather: despite torrential rains early in the day (after VG setup), the skies cleared and we had warm dry weather for the show. The crowd was markedly different at this show. While they were very loud and enthusiastic for the music, they were not very engaged by the VG and we talked to fewer people than in most prior shows. There were also many more smokers (odd thing), and more people declined to give their email addresses than any other show.


Above: David, Alicia, Jack and Aaron

Our bus left the venue at 2:30 a.m. and our diligent bus driver, R.T. took us in a beeline to Boulder, where heavy rain (again!) and cold greeted us. Elissa popped over to the new Patagonia store and got me a jacket, which is a life saver since I didn't bring anything for cold weather. Boulder is great! I walked around downtown, went to bookstores and coffee shops, then went for a run on the Boulder Creek Trail as far as I could make into the mountains before I decided that I had better turn around. We are again fortunate to be staying at the nicest hotel in town, the St. Julien, and I took advantage of the excellent spa for a much needed neck and shoulder massage. We do a lot of heavy lifting and pushing of equipment and cases, and my body is not used to it!


Above: Me and Elissa at the KC show

Tomorrow we have the show at Red Rocks Amphitheater, a small venue (9,450 capacity) that sold out immediately. It is supposed to have amazing natural acoustics, and be a great place to hear bands. Should be a great show! We have show immediately after that in Salt Lake City, so it's going to be a busy couple of days....

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Elizabeth,
We had an amazing time in KC! It was our pleasure to represent RAP. It was so great to hang out with you and see you in action. It is crazy how much work goes into what you are doing. You kick butt!!

Thanks for the kind words and support to Aaron and I.

See you soon!
The Bravos

Unknown said...

Hi Elizabeth!

Just wanted to say it was fun working with you Alicia and Aaron at the show in Kansas.

I was waiting for a bunch of people to ask challenging questions, but most seemed to be more interested in just getting a seat. Still it was fun.

My 2 1/2 year old daughter danced the night away and wouldn't take her eyes off Jack the whole show. It was a great show for her first one. Thanks for that!

I'm sure you will be happy to get home an settle in - but you are doing something that's awesome and I'm glad I could help you out in Kansas.

Cheers!
David P.