JEFF PIKE - ABBA MANIA - FALL 2021 TOUR BLOG - DAY 2

October 29, 2021
The Raue Center
Crystal Lake, Illinois
www.rauecenter.org

Check out the TOUR page for all venue and ticket information for upcoming dates. ​
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With the previous day and evening's events still fresh in my mind, I woke up the following day and told myself I would put them behind me and that today would be a great day. The first gig of the tour was going to be fantastic. Thus, setting the bar for the rest of the shows yet to come. With my brain still scattered (like when is it not), I spent all morning rearranging my luggage, backpack, necessities, and cosmetics that I would need to take into the venue with me each day. My goal was to get everything I would need into my backpack, so I could simply walk out of the bus into the venue and into my dressing room, shut the door, and be done with it. It took all morning long, but I finally got to the ‘this is as good as it will get’ point. My final realization arrived just in time to catch our Uber to the venue, where we hoped the bus would be waiting for us so we could get set up and get down to business. ​

Once we arrived, things did get off on a positive note once we heard the show was completely sold out and our wardrobe had arrived. Not only wardrobe mind you, but BRAND-NEW wardrobe. We were all very excited! There is nothing quite like the feel of brand-new satin and white leather mixed with thunderous applause and a white-hot spotlight. Unfortunately, the happy feelings for all were a little short-lived. 

You must keep in mind that with a production show of this size, there are a large amount of technical and performance pieces that need to fall into place for the show to even run, much less run smoothly and successfully. Sean, our sound guy (who is excellent, by the way), had to painstakingly run down dozens of gremlins that got into the entire system and the monitors for each specific performer. Personally, my take is this. I am chalking it up to the season. It is the Halloween season, and gremlins are running around that normally hibernate the rest of the year, and they need something to do. So, there you go. 

To make a long story short, we got everything fixed in time to start soundcheck just 45 minutes before doors opened. “The show must go on” kept ringing in our heads, and we all knew there was no turning back. So, when the lights went down, we jumped out of the plane with no parachutes and hoped for the best. 

Thanks to Andrew McClean, our illustrious and insanely talented tour and lighting director, the lights and stage looked phenomenal. As for the show, we all had some cuts and bruises when we finally walked off stage, but we made it through and did a remarkably good job. Thankfully, the sold-out house were rabid to see us and gave us fantastic praise and applause.  When the show was over, I hobbled back to my dressing room, got changed into my sweat pants and my sleep shirt for the tour (this tours sleep shirt is my Meat Loaf 2003 baseball tour jersey), went directly to the bus, crawled into my bottom bunk, put my earplugs in and fell into a restless, haunted sleep.