My 4th of July

Individually, I performed very well yesterday...really, really well, actually. As a group, we had a few shaky spots, but we were playing for an audience comprised of mostly blue hairs, so they didn't know the difference anyway.

It was just the hornline and percussion, because you can't really toss flags or rifles in a concert hall full of people, so the color guard didn't perform with us.

After arriving at 8am, we warmed up, rehearsed for a while, then met up with the orchestra and rehearsed the national anthem a couple times. We had our own green room, with our name on the doors and all that. We felt rather important.

For lunch a lot of us went across the street to a Spanish Tapas restaurant where we had a lovely yet pricey lunch. Then we rehearsed some more, got in full uniform, and went upstairs to wait backstage until it was our time to go on. We had rehearsed in the hall earlier that day, but there were fewer lights on the audience now, so it was almost impossible to see our conductor who was positioned in an aisle. Those of us in front clued in to the fact that those behind us probably couldn't see, so a couple of us bobbed our horns up and down slightly on 'one' and 'three' to help them out.

We were on the very front edge of the stage...literally less than 2 feet from the edge, so we all felt a little exposed. But I like to perform for others, so I quickly felt comfortable.

We had some timing issues between brass, percussion, and conductor, but we held it together and did decently well as a group. I nailed my solos and duets, which I am always very relieved about. I only fracked 2 or 3 notes the whole time and played very well.

After our on stage performance, we went back down to our green room, chilled for a few minutes, then went back up and outside to play for the concertgoers as they were leaving. We circled it up in the shade of a couple trees and played a few things with our Brass/Visual Caption head in the center. If you've ever stood in front of a hornline that is entirely bell-front instruments, you know what loud can be. This was loud. We only have 20 horns, but we produce a LOT of sound.

We then arced it up to face the crowd and played several tunes again from our performance. People were clapping and cheering and having a great time. Someone even asked if he had a CD for sale.

Someone I marched with either in college or in drum corps came up to me while we were outside our greenroom to say hi. She looked so very familiar, but I still don't know exactly were I know her from. It was neat to talk to her for a minute, and we chatted again after the performance. I always feel bad when I can't remember people, because they always seem to remember me.

I did have a lady come up to me afterwards and tell me that she was a horn player and that I was very good. I thanked her, and then several of my corps mates said, "no, she's great!" I have some truly great friends in this corps...gotta love 'em.

After everything was done, and uniforms were off and loaded on the truck, several of us chilled in the parking garage, drinking home brew, water, gatorade, etc. Then we decided to go out to dinner, so we drove to Macaroni Grill where we ate, drank, laughed, and generally had a fabulous time.

This particular Macaroni Grill is in a mall parking lot, and the mall was having fireworks, so we went outside to watch the show. The parking lot was 100% full because of everyone coming out to watch the fireworks, so we drank some more on the porch of the restaurant for over an hour, waiting for traffic to free up.

It was probably the best 4th of July I've ever had.

Right now there are fireworks going off in Fair Park, and I can hear them from where I sit typing this. Tomorrow I jump back into work mode, but I'll always remember this weekend. It was magical in its own kind of slice of life way.