On the Road with Sara: tobyMac does the na na

Today started as such an easy day. Actually way too easy. I got 8.5 hours of sleep, woke up and was so bored I actually went back to bed. Big mistake! Haha I didn't have to be over at the fairgrounds until about 11A and that early in the morning is pointless to try and advance shows. I thought for a minute about getting up and heading over at 8AM for the World's largest Zumba class. Kind of wish I had because it looks like it was a ton of fun!

Who am I kidding I was working, in my sleep at 7:30AM this morning! I had talked to two bus drivers, a tour manager and semi driver all before 8:30AM. I arrived at the fairgrounds to find one of the buses on site. While the bus was here their band/crew was in the air. Tenth Avenue North's bus with bus and crew arrives and it's still a little quiet. Then the runners pick up tobyMac and crew and we're off! Everyone was on site by 2:30PM...oh wait no, the opening act was not because Delta cancelled her flight. Oh the joys of travel. They actually hired a driver service to drive them from Chicago--arriving around 6PM. (about a 4hour drive). I don't even want to know what that bill was. But the point is they went above and beyond to make sure they were at the show. I like artists like that. :)

While it was an easy day for the typical opening day I was stocking dressing room bathrooms, organizing meet and greets and comp tickets, having to deal with a shattered iPad that someone accidentally ran over plus working on tomorrow and Saturday's shows. The only thing that made the day better was these groups were such a pleasure to work with. Everyone was so nice and just happy to be here. Tenth Avenue North's bus driver even popped my back. Now there's service!

The day wouldn't be complete with the fireworks! Every night the grandstand (and the rest of the fairgrounds) are treated to an amazing fireworks display. Now it's no Thunder over Louisville but it is however, only 200 ft away from me. I always talk with the headliner's production managers before and work out a cue. I stand on the back side of the stage and turn on a light that triggers the pyro guys to start the fireworks. Talk about holding you're breath! Sometimes the acts want you to set them off once the artist is off stage or taking a bow or like tonight, at a specific point in the song. I get the description of "you know that sports song that goes, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye." So that's their last song and they wanted them to go off during the song. "Is the cue that good that they'll be right in sync?" With my reply "well I'm the one triggering so I guess we'll have to hope I can figure it out." I shouldn't have opened my mouth because I could hardly recognize the song! They had put it to a rocked out beat that I was having to sing along just to make sure it was correct. Sure enough--booom! They're in the first chorus, ignition and we're in for a treat. The wind was blowing right for us and we were covered in burning embers. Couldn't have been a more successful night!

My favorite quote of the day- "We can put our expensive coolers out. They won't steal them." Lol You can tell we've been in the business too long. I'm looking forward to a couple more easy days! Tomorrow we have Happy Together which is 'The Buckinghams', 'The Grass Roots', 'Gary Puckett', 'Mickey Dolenz' and 'The Turtles'.