Friday, May 4, 2012

Home Stretch- Part II: Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, Peoria, Champaign, Springfield


                This is it, folks- the last one!

                We only spent a day in Abilene.  But a great audience and our first taste of summer made it a pretty welcoming stop on our tour.  The weather was 80ish degrees and sunny, which was quite a change from our previous 50’s-60’s temperatures and the rain (and a bit of snow in Colorado) in the previous week.  And our audience was outstanding, giving the actors a much-needed boost on a one-nighter.

Abilene Civic Center, Abilene, Texas

                More awesome audiences in Amarillo.  And much more sun and heat.  I spent a lot of time outside, and even ran outside for the first time in eight months; some of my joints are aching pretty badly.  Still, it was a nice change of pace.

Amarillo Civic Center, Amarillo, Texas


                Okay, what’s the deal with all these fantastic audiences in Texas?  We were in three different cities in TX before Christmas, and I don’t remember them being this great.  And Lubbock is no exception.  We performed on campus at Texas Tech, and our theater, in all honesty, had some things to be desired (renovations, e.g.).  But what thrilled me is that there was a Wal-Mart Supercenter right across the street from our hotel.  Now, some people would look down on me for saying that, and part of me does, too.  But when you’re on tour and obtaining provisions to live daily life proves generally difficult, Wal-Mart is like an Oasis in the middle of the desert.

City Bank Auditorium, Lubbock, Texas

                Our last show in Lubbock, a Sunday matinee, was cancelled.  Therefore, we gained a Golden Day!  I spent mine with a friend with whom I went to grad school at Florida International University, who is also a native of Lubbock.  He showed me around Lubbock and we had a very, well, “spirited” day.  Because I wasn’t used to doing so much in a day, I was completely exhausted by the time I came back to the hotel.

                Our only flight between cities on this half of the tour occurred between Lubbock and Peoria.  The awesome thing was that we flew into Moline with buses ready to drive us to Peoria.  So what I did was stay at home and come to Peoria the next day.  It was a nice little preview of home before coming back a week later.

                Peoria- the venue that all of the Quad-Citians have been waiting for.  The first night in Peoria, there were about ten people that came from the QC.  Joe Maubach came and sat in the pit and we had a nerd-man-date the next day- lunch, comic book shop, “Cabin In The Woods”….’nuff said.

Peoria Civic Center, Peoria, Illinois

                The second night in Peoria, there were 20-25 people that came to see me- so over 30 people in all.  I had been waiting nearly eight months for our stay in Peoria in hopes of seeing a few people I know at my show.  However, the outcome was way more than I could have hoped for.  I was thrilled and humbled to see so many people there.  Definitely my favorite stop on the tour.

                Champaign was our last one-nighter of the tour.  It was also our third and final arena show.  The band likes arena shows because we feel licensed to goof off a little more than usual, given that nobody can peer over the edge and see us because we’re behind the stage.  We performed on campus at the University of Illinois.  I’d tell you how our audience was, but we don’t get much feedback behind the stage.

Assembly Hall, Champaign, Illinois

                I don’t think I need to say how energized and excited our cast was in our final city of Springfield, Missouri.  The end was near, and people were counting down by the scene.  After that last curtain on Sunday, April 29th, the stresses just flew out of peoples’ bodies and we became high with an overall sense of relief.

Hammons Performing Arts Center, Springfield, Missouri

                The next day, we took three separate busses to St. Louis and flew home.


So here’s our brief number recap:

For This Half:

Many comic books read
5 books read
11 seasons of South Park, 1 season of Archer, complete series’ of Baccano! and Gurren Lagann (Anime), and all of the current seasons of The Office, The Big Bang Theory, South Park, and Glee watched
33 movies watched
3 videogames played (Portal, Half-Life 2, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga)
3 times doing laundry

For The Entire Tour
51 cities/theaters
57 hotels/beds
2 countries
26 states and 2 Canadian Provinces
245 shows
24,500 (est.) miles traveled

Now, you might be hearing this for the first time, or you may have heard it through some tiny grape vine somewhere, but this tour IS NOT OVER.  We’ve been extended into the summer and are going to Malaysia (one week), China (four weeks), and as of yesterday, possibly Singapore (five weeks).  I’ll get to see parts of the world I’ve not yet seen, and I’ll be getting paid to do it.  However, I also get to spend some of my summer in the Quad-Cities, making this summer pretty awesome.


Danny’s Final Thoughts:

-          -Actors are great in small doses
-          -Even as an introvert, I’m not a huge fan of the limited social life that touring enforces
       -I have become accustomed to this lifestyle and would be willing to do it for a couple more years at the most
-          -The overall level of talent at home easily rivals that of this tour; it’s amazing the difference having an agent makes
-          -I am more determined than ever to move to New York City and find work there
-          -This country has become a much smaller place, and so, soon, will the world


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