Grantblings

Puppet Up Spring 2014 Tour – March 15, 2014 – Kalamazoo, MI

The morning stared with me sleeping in and then, waking up after 11:00 AM. Much needed as sleep on this tour has been rough. I spent the hour or so before lobby call showering, getting ready to check out and listening to my newly downloaded Future Folk Volume One album from itunes. It’s really a great album. Funny lyrics, great playing.

At 1:00 PM we met the shuttle to the venue, the Miller Auditorium which is on the campus of West Michigan University. I dropped off my bags then took a walk across the campus to where I could get myself a Subway sandwich. I hadn’t had dinner the night before so I was pretty hungry. The West Michigan University campus is really nice. A lot of it was covered in snow and it made for a pleasant walk.

I walked back to the venue, and checked out the green room which has autographed 8 by 10’s of some of the people who have performed here and it’s a pretty amazing list. I always love when we play a place where the Oak Ridge Boys or “Weird Al” Yankovic have played. According to the headshots, The Smothers Brothers, Penn & Teller and Steve Martin have all played here. I know I’ll never be on their level, but it’s pretty cool to tread the same boards, so to speak.

The Miller Auditorium is a fantastic venue and the crew was top notch. Our tech rehearsal was one of the smoothest I’ve ever been involved with. Much props to our head tech guy Greg for being responsible for that. He’s a total pro and can handle any situation easily.

The show tonight was fantastic. The crowd was fired up and their suggestions were amazing. The cast was in top form as well. Vanessa and Peggy did a hilarious Flashback scene involving Vanessa’s first kill. Victor and Tim did a riotous Job Interview scene involving an audience puppeteer Garrett. And Sean did a great Digital Puppet scene telling the story of Killer Proctologists. A great show.

Afterwards, we went out to take pictures with the crowd and I met Melissa who made this awesome Mini Uncle Interloper! So awesome!

After the show it was on the bus to head to Madison, Wisconsin for the final show on this tour.