Chaos in Indiana

rehearsal in Neff Hall, at Indiana Purdue University

Wow, where do I begin? It was a fast and furious trip -- Nic and I drove down on the Saturday night before. It was a pretty normal roadtrip, aside from stopping at the most surreal truck stop on the face of the Earth -- seriously, it was like something out of a David Lynch movie. But we arrived in Fort Wayne safe and sound... all in all, an uneventful evening... until I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, tripped over the pedalboard I'd left in the middle of the hotel room floor, slipped on the comforter, and smacked my head on the edge of the bed. Slick move, dude... veeery slick.

The next morning, we woke up, got packed back up, and met the director, Gregg Gausline, at the ubiquitous freeway-side Cracker Barrel. My fourth toe looked like an overripe plum, but when I found out Gregg had finished the Indianapolis Marathon the day before, there was NO WAY I was going to limp in front of him. We had a chance to talk about music, the school, and the ensemble, and get to know each other better, before we headed over to the concert hall.

I hadn't played CT since the spring, and I was so pumped up to be performing again, I could hardly stand still before the performance. I'd also completely forgotten about my toe. The rehearsal went smoothly, aside from my amp. It was a rental I'd brought down from Chicago, and the tone I was getting was... not pleasant. It was totally lacking definition and instead of roaring like a man-eating tiger, it was kinda barking like a dog with laryngitis. I had a chance to shape and tweak it out a little more before clearing the stage, but I was still not thrilled with what was coming out. Solid state sucks.

We cleared the stage, and almost immediately, the audience began to file in. I went backstage to scrounge up some food from a vending machine -- the pre-concert meal was cheeze-on-wheat crackers and a package of meat sticks. Totally did the trick. I also had a chance to talk to some of the musicians (mostly about progressive concepts in stage attire), and I met Micah, a trombonist who had actually been at the world premiere of Chaos Theory at UNLV!!! Now THAT was trippy...

The concert started, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to hear their entire performance, but I heard a few really tight performances of a few particularly cool pieces: Old Home Days by Charles Ives, and Elfin Thunderbolt by Nancy Galbraith. Chaos Theory was the last piece on the program, and the entire piece ran on rails. The band was rock solid and played with great conviction. The audience ate it up, and were on their feet for a standing ovation. I'm also performing with them in February 2006, and I can't wait to rock the stage with them again!

A big thank you to Cory (high voltage), Bryan (de bass man), Micah (Go Rebels!), Cathy (you can quote me on that), Megan, Joshua, Zach, Brandon (bones), Brandon (de mallet man), Ron J., and Casey (de other bass man), Vince (thanks for the help with the sound check), and the rest of the musicians whose names did not deserve the fate of my sieve-like brain... and a HUGE thank you to Gregg Gausline for making this concert possible. See you all in February!!!

(BTW: On my way out to the lobby, I ran into Elmer, the university photographer. Hopefully I'll have more pictures soon... oh, and my toe is TOTALLY broken, and NOW IT REALLY HURTS!)