Grantblings

S&US Tour Diary – April 9, 2013 – Fort Worth show

The morning of the 9th was spent lazily getting ready for the show that night at Bass Hall in Fort Worth, and making sure I was all packed up to leave. We needed to check out of the hotel as we were hitting the road to Austin right after the show.

Once I was all packed up, I took another stroll in downtown Fort Worth. They have a really nice downtown area, though most of it is under construction.

After a late lunch it was time to head to the venue. Bass Hall is an amazing venue. Like a giant opera house on the inside. Almost a little intimidating to play there it’s so big and ornate on the inside.

The cast is usually called to the venue at about 3 or 4PM. We get into mics and go through sound and tech rehearsal. This is to check the sound, but to also check some of the tech elements of the show, like the Henson Digital Puppetry System and position things like the rail that we use for Java and I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face.

I want to take a brief moment to give a shout out to our crew Greg, Cameron, Zach and Sean. These guys have to be at the venue early in the morning to direct the local crew in getting things set up and ready to go. A few days ago when we had that seven and a half long hour bus ride? They had to get to the venue right after we arrived. No sleep. They do a heck of a job making us look good.

After rehearsal we usually have dinner at the venue. Today the dinner was barbecue chicken and it was amazing. We got to dine in a really fancy green room too. Just off of the green room was a fancy little reception room where Patrick realized it’s be fun to take these goofy ‘serious’ photos. We spent pretty much up to show time posing on this couch and coming up with insane ways to pose with the puppets.

Then it was time to Puppet Up! The crowd at Bass Hall was fantastic. Their suggestions were awesome and they were with us the whole time.

I did ‘Slide Show’ with Allan and our suggestion was Oprah & Gayle’s Road Trip. We had some fun with that and when a slide of a cow came up I remembered Oprah and her ‘beef’ with the cattle ranchers. I brought that up and it got a big laugh.

Alien Barbershop was fun, though having a day off, I should have refreshed my memory on the right key of the song a bit. I was off. But the rhyme got a big laugh. I’ll let you guess the topic but here was my song…

I do it daily,
To keep me calm.
Just don’t look,
At my hairy palm.

That went over pretty good.

We got a great suggestion for the title of our Film Noir structure: Double Indignity. Hilarious!

Right after the show we hit the road to Austin. The bus drive was, refreshingly, normal. No problems at all. We even got a stop at a Whataburger. It was so nice to have some uneventful travel.

But then we got to the hotel….

And since it happened after midnight, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.