We had great fun performing last night at the beautiful Lyric Theater in Stuart, Florida, as part of the National Dance Week program entitled "A Dance for Everyone," and we're particularly grateful to Anna Preston & Dancers ( www.annaprestondancers.com ) for having choreographed and performed such an awesome dance to our music!
On Saturday, the guys came from their indivdual parts of the state (Peter from Wauchula, Steve from Largo and Rich from Maitland) and convened at a lake house in the small town of Lake Placid. (The exact location will be kept secret, so as to prevent a mob of fans from storming the property in an attempt to gain access to our discarded beer bottles) Countless love bugs were smashed by our vehicles to make this meeting happen, and slightly fewer beer bottles were emptied of their contents. After an intense rehearsal session, which lasted nearly 10 minutes, the band enjoyed dinner together at Jaxson's, a local establishment. There were no ribs, despite the same having been offered on the menu, which almost caused Rich to explode and trash the joint in true rock star fashion. Thankfully, he chose a slightly less violent option and ordered shrimp instead.
On Sunday, the band traveled to Stuart, Florida, arriving at the historic Lyric Theatre in the early afternoon (www.lyrictheatre.com), and after finding a stack of quarters at a haunted car wash, we participated in an afternoon rehearsal with the dancers (www.annaprestondancers.com). We were thrilled to see our music interpreted by these great dancers, as well as by the visual artists who created computer-generated art in real time on a screen behind us as we played. We were amused that the dancers had actually choreograped a movement in time to an audio artifact (Rich saying "yeah" at the end of his guitar track) at the very end of our song "Back Home" that we had forgotten about and was just left in the mix as a happy accident. After some intense discussion and brainstorming it was agreed that Peter would mimic this sound so the dance could actually conclude.
Between the rehearsal and the show we strolled around downtown Stuart and got to hear some jazz by Kenny Clark's organ trio. We found a place that actually served ribs this time, and then went to the show. The show was really great and we had a nice time watching the dance pieces in the 1st half of the show from the balcony. Then we shuffled back our dressing room, where we could not flush the toilet during the show, as we were told it would be heard in the theatre. We left a beer in the dressing room fridge for Kris Kristofferson, who will be appearing at the theatre soon. We bet he gets to flush the toilet whenever he damn well pleases.
Our part of the show went very well and we had a great time participating in this multi-media performance, which was over in a flash. The crowd was very friendly and we felt very well-received. After the show, we headed back on the road to kill more love bugs!