Well it was a blast. We had a really lazy morning - breakfast in the room, followed by watching TV (well, okay surfing for half an hour looking for something worth watching) and reading. Nice and unpressured.
We took a walk out for lunch and to pick up some snacks for this afternoon. We ended up back in Annie's Steakhouse, where John Moysen, Gabriel and Edmond were brunching, along with Alistair Wellman and his new friend (whose name eludes me for the moment...) We met Charlie on the way back to the hotel - he had been diverted to New York because of the bad weather yesterday and had only arrived at the hotel late last night.
So we gathered our kit (quite considerable when you add in all the merchandising we had to take to the theatre) and hopped into a taxi with some of the other guys, heading for the venue. The usual form was followed: we had a call time of 2pm, when we're supposed to arrive at our dressing room, to be ready for rehearsal at 2:30. We had a particularly long stint today (two hours) because it's been a while since some of us have sung the repertoire and the first time on this stage. There were also the usual walk-throughs of getting on and off the stage, and the niceties of bowing and suchlike.
After our allotted two hours, the Kansas Chorus (Heartland) were rehearsing for an hour while we had a break. Then all three choruses were on stage - boy, that was cosy! - to rehearse the three joint numbers (one provided by each chorus). It rapidly became obvious that no-one had rehearsed any of the other chorus' materials very much, so we all relied on the 'owner chorus' members to lead the rest of us through the unfamiliar numbers which was kind of a bonding experience.
The Lisner auditorium is larger than the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is our normal large venue, totally about 1400 seats and the concert was a sell-out. We performed in the second portion of the first half, after the Heartland choir. As we waited behind the curtain while Washington's compere rambled, I felt more nervous than I had in a long time. After the curtain went up the first number was ‘All I Care About Is Love’ which involves the use of red fans. I was on the back row and every fan in my eye-line was quivering, so I guess I wasn’t the only one with a bit of stage fright.
Our performance was somewhat patchy, although we did a superb rendition of ‘What I Did for Love’ which is often a weak spot. We were only thirty-five people and were somewhat dwarfed by the stage in the opening and closing numbers which didn’t help.
After the show there was a party with the other choruses. We had already located our ‘host’ chorus member, who had volunteered to give us a lift to the party, who was a lovely Second Tenor by the name of Darren. His spacious SUV carried myself, Brett, John Windle and an inflatable Big Ben to a pub/restaurant that had been booked for the evening.
The party itself was fun, although the food had already run out when we arrived and no more was available – there weren’t even any local takeaways or pizza delivery spots. Washington it seems is not a late-night town. The restaurant had its own micro-brewery so I had a pint of some black, strong-tasting stuff before switching to Margharitas – which also came in pint glasses.
After spending the night mingling, we eventually got a lift home from one of the Washington guys around 1:00am.
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