Hey,
Tonight we did our final show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Our last load in. Our last load out. Our last catered meal at the venue. A ten-week experience's worth of important mental notes, orphaned forever. The details of the day's setup and show are hazy, overwhelmed by the significance of the day as a whole.
In the week or so leading up to this final show, it was decided that the crew would prank opening act Reggie Watts. One idea was to just have members of the crew begin to walk onto the stage and take a seat during his set. Another idea was to add a performance-art twist to his final song. Reggie finished his set most nights with his composition, "Fuck Shit Stack." Skip Twitchell, the tour's video guy, painted 14 medium-sized cardboard boxes with the words "Shit" and "Fuck." During the chorus of "Fuck Shit Stack," we began to walk onto the stage and literally create stacks of "Fuck" and "Shit" around him. It was fun to watch Reggie try to keep his composure as we littered the stage with boxes of "Fuck" and "Shit." After the stacks were built, I saw a bunch of my tourmates beginning to walk onto the stage, and figured I'd join in as we'd discussed. But instead of everyone ending up on stage, it turns out that three of my tour mates, Shari, Michelle, and Adriane, had decided, perhaps at the spur of the moment, to dance around Reggie in response to his line, "where my girls at?". So it ended up being just me and three dancing girls at center stage, with maybe a minute to kill. It was kinda like a nightmare, really. But I stayed out there, and threw a box of "Shit" out into the crowd when the song ended.
Conan's voice was really hoarse and raspy during the soundcheck today. I was worried that he might be in real trouble during the harder vocal numbers in the show. But Conan summoned up a great show, husky voice be damned. And the crowd ate it up.
After the load out, we headed back to the Ritz Carlton Buckhead, got cleaned up, and joined Conan and the entire tour party at the hotel lounge for our last goodbyes over cocktails. I have a feeling it's going to take a few days for this to set in.
Next, the LA-based crew will all fly home to LAX in the morning.
I actually ended up with the "Shit" box. But I work as the Social Media "guy" for The Fox so at the after party, I gave the box to a big fan from Alabama. Thanks for the show and the blog. I never get blown away, but I'm *still* reliving moments from the show in my head. BTW, we need a copy of Triumph's video. Anyway to get my hands on that for the venue's archive?
ReplyDeleteRussell,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I'm glad you enjoyed the show, and the blog. As I have neither access to, nor authority to distribute any of the show's video content, I'm afraid I'm of no help to you in that regard. Now that the tour is over, I'm not even sure who would have that stuff. Perhaps the promoter could facilitate that request in some way?