What a GREAT place to finish this tour - at the Oklahoma City University, Petree auditorium. It was AMAZING! Beautiful stage, 5 feet off the ground, lights, 488 seats and seats full of kids. YAY!
Neel and I got there early to set up. He kept reminiscing about the old days when he went to OCU and how there were no elevators and no practice rooms. Now this "Bass" school of music is #1 in design for musicians needs. It is a pristine 4 story building with more space now and elevators than they know what to do with. All practice rooms have digital key pads to enter your practice time. They have their own recording studio on premise and recital halls with automatic room configurations for any size concert, automatic lights, automatic electronic curtains to section the rooms off. Their facilities are futuristic. What an extraordinary example for all music school to come.
Any way, we set up on stage and waited til 11am when the show started. Thankfully, OCU was having a summer camp and brought 90 of their elementary aged campers and we had a great turn out of friends and family too. I'd say half the auditorium was filled, which was perfect.
I could see the camp counselors and parents get a little nervous when I invited the kids down in front and in the isles for the fast upbeat songs. However,they quickly realized it was the only way for the kids to dance, run and get into the songs. Surprisingly, at the end of each song everyone politely went back to their seats. Then as soon as the kids heard the next upbeat song they all started to come out of their seats again. We had sooo much fun! They listened very well and didn't get out of control. In my opinion at least. LOL I wasn't sure how it was going to work out in an auditorium seating, but it was just fine. Even the adults were in the isles dancing and getting into it! That was cool to see. Why do we stop having fun when we get older?
My children, Sage and Emma sat in the front row. Emma danced and had a great time. Sage did too, but of course Sage has absolutely no filter and didn't remember our last conversation...he yelled out the answer to all of my show questions. I got out my guitar and Sage yells "Guitar! It's made out of WOOD!" Really? I didn't even say anything yet. LOL Then when I said "What do you do at a Red light" he said "Stop and spells out S.T.O.P". LOL! I laughed and just asked the audience to join me in spelling the word Stop. hahahahaa! The boy makes me laugh. I don't want to discourage him and I know he's just trying to contribute. It's funny.
There was great energy on stage and off stage. It's sooo nice to do a show with Neel and live drums. There's no down time, it's song after song and fun to be able to talk to someone on stage too. I think he should have his own microphone too! He of course is not to keen on the idea and is afraid of what might come out of his mouth. LOL
We got great video clips and pictures. I will definitely update my website and use these pictures for promo packages. :)
Well, the tour is officially over. I've learned a lot along the way. Ways to promote my show, new venues that will accept kids shows and new ideas for future gigs. Someone asked me along the way "What is your ultimate goal"? I guess to continue doing kids shows full-time, keep writing new songs that are educational and active and have fun with my family. This new career path brings us all together and that means more to me than anything else!
If the rest of our trip goes as planned...we will drive to Houston, Texas tomorrow morning after having breakfast with Neel's parents and celebrating his Dad's 72 birthday. By Sunday we'll be in New Orleans to celebrate the fourth of July and our 6th wedding anniversary. On Monday and Tuesday we'll visit my dear friend for over 20 years, Melissa and her family in Mobile, AL and be home by July 7th.
I am thankful for all of the priceless memories with friends and family!
