Somewhat lazy morning. Late, leisurely breakfast where it actually felt like we were on holiday. Damn good. Then onto the Hyatt for our rehearsal. We had a half-hour slot at the ‘Expo’ in the Complex Des Jardins. The Expo is basically lots of stalls and a stage set out in the shopping complex across from the main performing venue. We did our basic ‘crowd pleaser’ repertoire to much applause and seemed to attract plenty of shoppers as well as fellow GALA delegates.
Lot’s of positive feedback afterwards too – including some from the Twin Cities Chorus, who are performing in the other theatre at the same time that we do our main show on Friday. They were partly upset that they were going to miss our set and partly miffed ‘cos they felt we’d get the audience. I don’t think they need to worry that much as for whatever reason, GALA have put us in the smaller venue that only seats about 1400. The Twin Cities group gets the main theatre with in excess of 2000 seats. I get the impression that the London Gay Men’s Chorus is well respected from previous visits where they’ve been innovative and ground-breaking. I hope we can live up to that reputation this time.
After our show, it was across the road to watch the first concert block of the afternoon. There were various amusing small groups to start the block who were followed by the Indianapolis Women’s and Men’s Choruses, Capital City Men’s Chorus (Brett’s old choir from Austin) and the GMC of Los Angeles. The surprise came from Indianapolis Men’s Chorus who were only about 35 singers but gave a much more dynamic and audible performance than the much larger GMCLA.
After the concert block, we headed back to Des Jardins to watch Captain Smartypants again, who were doing their Expo show today. Different material from yesterday (was it only yesterday??) but just as funny. We’d met up with a couple of Brett’s friends from the Capital City chorus as well as Ping and some of the Washington guys and, as it had now started raining, we hopped into taxis back to our hotel for dinner. It wasn’t quite the relaxed meal it might have been, as we only had an hour and a half to eat and get back to see the start of the next concert block. Oh well.
Ping had his new friend along whom he wanted us to meet, a lovely chap called Mike who sings with the Washington Chorus. No idea really what’s going on there, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed for them both.
The evening block started with a number of women’s choirs all of which were good and the block ended with the Heartland Men’s Chorus from Kansas City, with whom we’d sung last Thursday in Washington. It was good to see their full set, as we’d only caught parts of it during the rehearsals last week. We looked for them on the way out of the theatre, but I think we got our wires crossed and missed them.
A group of the Capital City guys and Brett & I headed down to the village for a few beers. We ended up meeting the Heartland guy we knew there anyway, so it worked out alright in the end. We watched most of the show at Campus. CC drifted off through the evening and when Heartland decided they were going to go onto a club called ‘The Stud’ Brett & I decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel.
Brett sent a link to my blog to his family this morning, so ‘Hello’ to everyone in Texas. Apologies if this is a bit of a dull read – normally I try to include more reflection in my travel diaries, but this holiday has been pretty much none-stop since the word go.
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