After 12 days on the road now, wearing the same clothes every day with no makeup for travel, I was starting to feel like a hag. Frank? Same clothes? No problem. Just air them out. Thankfully, I packed a spare suitcase that was buried under one of the car seats with lots more clothes. We dragged it up to our second floor hotel room, and upon opening it, it was like Christmas! I feel giddy like one of those women on the Oregon Trail who just got a new bonnet!
I got all dressed up this morning to go downstairs to the lobby for the Super 8 complementary breakfast, just glowing. I made my toast, and poured my weak Midwest coffee while flicking back my beautiful silk scarf, to show off my gold earrings.
On the road, it’s important to keep things simple and prioritize. Our car is well organized with our show equipment and hanging bags for our concert clothes, and two small bags for our daily needs. Anything we leave in the car, including makeup, shampoo, fruit, water, etc. will be frozen solid the next morning, or within hours.
Today we have the luxury of a little time to do laundry. Hallelujah!
We left the hotel to go to the venue. The air carried the scent of cows.. We weren’t expecting much, here, in the middle of nowhere. However, much to our amazement, the venue would have suited the New York Philharmonic, or any large touring Broadway production. Some very professional and friendly people greeted us. As we entered the magnificent, grand doors, we saw a gigantic poster with my picture on it in the lobby. This place belonged in some big city, not Holdrege, Nebraska! The hall was huge and state of the art. The piano was a nine- foot Baldwin. There were four dressing rooms, showers, a green room, and extra pianos everywhere. I became a little nervous. Could we live up to this? The copy on the poster compared me to Liberace, George Winston, and Victor Borges, all rolled up into one dynamic woman. I took a deep breath.
We got everything set up and I was feeling pretty special. Then we found out that we had competition that night. Every concert does; mostly it’s sports events. This time, however, in a neighboring town, “The Brown Family” was performing. All five of their kids went to Julliard, and they perform with six grand pianos! They are pretty well known, and lots of subscribers were going to see them tonight instead of us. I wouldn’t have minded seeing them myself! So, this gorgeous hall that seats 1000+ would only be sprinkled with 300 people at best.
I said to myself, “OK, Sally, you’re on tour. You’re a pro. Roll with it.”
The piano, freshly tuned, even having met the tuner, started having problems only an hour before the show. If I used the soft pedal, the hammers would hit two notes instead of one! For those of you who don’t know pianos, it sounds like I’m playing with my fingers on the cracks instead of the keys! If that wasn’t enough, the nice tuning the man did was melting like an ice cream cone in the sun. Something was up with this Baldwin. I informed our contact person, Rachel. She was so nice, and was ready to call back the tuner immediately, but he was long gone, and over 40 miles away.
Our cell phone rang. It was Allie! Our entire focus turned to hearing about her Medical School interview today at OHSU. She felt good about how it went, and we had to hear every detail. We’re optimistic. Go, Allie!!!!
We probably had about 300 people, as expected, but they were scattered and it seemed like less because of the gigantic hall. As we played, I had my doubts as to how we were connecting with the audience. I had restrictions, too. I couldn’t let my left foot wander over to the soft pedal, or disaster!
Frank and I were just a little distracted in the first half, and we made a few errors I was afraid the audience would notice. The piano by this time was horribly out of tune. I guess I wanted everything to be perfect tonight, to live up to this place and its people. I bit my lip and started the second half. The audience was responsive, but I refused to believe it.
We got a cheering standing ovation and I was shocked! I had thought we bombed.
We greeted people in the lobby rather shyly at first, while there was a lady at our CD table selling hand over fist. She said in all their history, they have never had that many sales.
There were families there tonight, including lots of cute kids taking piano lessons. I wanted to hug every one of them!
We’re flopped in bed now, after a record night so far. Go figure!
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