Concordia College and Back
I’m back in Milwaukee now, well rested, and I now have the energy to complete my tale.
After we checked out of the hotel, we made our way to the college. On the way there, we stopped by at Atomic Coffee to get some caffeine. While I was waiting for the cappuchino and mocha, my eye was drawn to a large green apple. I grabbed it, and was holding it in my hand when the coffee was brought to the counter. I paid for the coffee and left.
En route to the college, I discovered I had the apple in my pocket. Which was strange, because I didn’t remember paying for it. Which essentially meant that I had inadvertently pinched the apple right under the cashier’s nose! I didn’t have time to return the apple. I was going to have to chew on the karmic debt later.
We arrived at Concordia and met an extremely diverse group of students, who seemed excited to have us perform. Unfortunately, the scenario was extremely disorganized. No one seemed to have any idea of what was going on. The sound crew seemed taxed by our requests. And all the students there were eager to start their talent show, which made us realize how secondary our presence was going to be. On a brighter note, I discovered there were a lot of Sri Lankan students at Concordia, which was quite startling to me. I was unloading my gear when I heard “Nah bhang…machang…etc,” and I thought I was in a different country.
Overall, the show was a success, but it was not without some inherent hitches. The best songs were Invocations and Malaika. Everything else was passable, but certainly not the best One Drum fare. I always find it a challenge to play without a drum set player. It’s hard to keep consistent tempos without a good timekeeper. The audience seemed to enjoy the show, but wanted us stop far short of our contracted two hours. Which was fine. In the end we drove for 21+ hours to perform for a little longer than an hour.
Don’t get me wrong…the students were great, and seemed really nice. They could benefit from some organizational skills, or some coaching from experienced advisors. Either way, they were unprepared for our band, even though we had forwarded full spec sheets, stage plots, requirements, etc. We live and learn.
One Drum packed up our stuff and were right about to leave when Dave Wake discovered he was missing his wallet. Time passed. He finally found it in his bag…
We were about to drive off when we discovered the back door was open. Much congenial laughter was shared over that episode. We ended up leaving Moorhead at midnight, Friday night.
The return trip was extremely foggy, and I was driving. In the end, I decided it was best to simply ride the center line, which left me a good buffer of road in case the road curved. I had three Red Bulls during my shift, which ended at 5:00 am. I was wiped out. I don’t recall much of what transpired thereafter. I tried to sleep, with mixed success.
Hours later, we arrived in Madison and dropped of David and Ian Stocker. And a little later, we arrived back home in Milwaukee, exhausted, but with heavy pockets.