Greatest Night Ever (July 24, 2009)

The four groups that we have been working with all week long had their concert tonight. It was great to see how much they have progressed throughout the week and they did a great job at the concert. Everyone we talked to after the concert was very complimentary of all of the groups.

After the concert we all went out to hang and say our goodbyes. Since it was the first time we weren't in a “teacher” kind of roll, we were able to have some fun and really get to know the people we have spent so much time with. It was a great night.

Peter
GFT

2 Gigs, 1 Night (July 21, 2009)

For the first time in GFT history, we performed two full sets in one evening. Even though we were all extremely exhausted, it was a great night. We were fortunate enough to be able to perform for two great crowds. We ended up having to do 2 encores which made the sets even longer, but still a really great feeling.

After the first set, we went out into the hall to meet with the audience and sign CDs. By the time we were talking to the last few people from the first set, a large number of people from the second set were lining up in the hall to get into the venue. So, we had to run back in and get ready for the next set immediately. It was a crazy night indeed.

Jame's wife (Autumn) was at the first set. Talk about devotion. She flew all the way to Utrecht to see a GFT gig. Well that isn't entirely true, but it sounds good. Anyway, during the intro to Take My Hand Precious Lord (when James is improving during the intro of the tune) Autumn yells out “Your so sexy!” Wow.

We performed our newest song How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You for the first time. It is my feature (not trying to toot my own horn here its just an important part of the story) and James had told me to find a girl in the audience and sing to her (as a joke). During the second set, I decided to do just that. I felt so badly for the poor young girl that I chose to sing to. She was so awkward about the whole situation. She wouldn't even look at me. It was the most awkward thing that has happened on this entire trip so far. Sheesh. Thats what I get for listening to James.

Peter
GFT

Work Work Work (July 20, 2009)

We have been having a blast at Europa Cantat. We performed at the opening ceremony in front of about 4,000 people and have been working with 4 very talented vocal groups in our atelier. We have finally overcome our jet lag and have been able to really enjoy the beautiful city of Utrecht. Brennan and myself, being the intelligent young men that we are, have fully embraced the Dutch culture and have rented bikes for the week. I wasn't really trying to imply anything about the other guys with that little comment, but if thats the conclusion you jumped to...

We were originally schedule to do one performance on Tuesday at 8:45pm, but they have rescheduled us to do two shows due to high demand. So now we have a performance at 8:45pm and 10:45pm on Tuesday night. You are, at this point, probably thinking the same thing we are about now. 10:45 AT NIGHT!? It looks like we are in for a very long night, but we are looking forward to it. The 8:45pm show is already sold out and we heard this morning that the 10:45pm show is close to selling out as well. Looking forward to tomorrow night. We all need to get some good rest tonight. In fact, I should really call it a night.

Peter
GFT

Long Walks and Longer Days (July 17, 2009)

We made it to the Netherlands! Considering our last adventure at the airport, I think that there was more than a little doubt in all of our minds that we would actually make it here. We left Seatac at 1:00pm on Thursday and arrived in Amsterdam at 7:00am on Friday.

Jet lag is a beast! There is a 9 hour time difference between Seattle and Utrecht. Combine that with the 10 hour plane ride and our collective inability to sleep on the flight and you get a group of very tired people. As soon as we arrived in Utrecht, we discovered that the predominant forms of transportation in Holland are bicycles and walking. Much to our dismay, that meant hauling all of our luggage and sound equipment around for about an hour to get to Jaarbeurs (the main hall and area to check into the festival) and our hotel.

Once we were all checked in at our hotel, we had a rehearsal with Dox (a six person dance group). We had to work out a transition between Dox's performance and our performance at the opening ceremony. We have never claimed to be great dancers (publicly), so we were all a bit nervous going into the rehearsal. Fortunately, we weren't asked to dance and the transition (although completely out of our comfort zones) was relatively painless. Judging by Nick and Andrea's faces, they thoroughly enjoyed watching us look horribly awkward.

So, we have had a very very very very very very long 48 hour day. Looking forward to some rest.

Peter
GFT

Failure to launch

We have had a very stressful couple of days. We have spent the last 2 days at SeaTac airport trying desperately to get to Nebraska to do a performance.
Currently, I am exhausted, extremely irritated and smell heavily of Lady
Speed Stick; but I am getting ahead of myself.

It all started Monday morning. We arrive at SeaTac at 5:00am for our 7:00 flight. We check our baggage, which includes most of the sound equipment we need to perform and all of our performance clothes. We have to pay extra to check 2 bags, but because of the amount of gear that we travel with, each member has to check one case of equipment and carry on one case of equipment.

Our flight has been delayed for 2 hours. We board the plane and prepare for take off. I should probably mention a fun little known fact about Groove For Thought and airplanes at this point. We ALWAYS end up sitting at the back of the plane. This time was no different. My seat was the LAST seat on the plane. Once we are all settled into our seats and deal with a complete lack of overhead bin space for our 2 carry on items, the pilot announces that we cannot take off because the mechanical issue (that appeared to be fixed) was actually still broken. We get off the plane (remember where I said we were seated on the plane) to see a huge line of about 130 very upset passengers.

We stand in this very very very slow moving line for 2 and a half hours.
While most of us are in line, Kelly and Jeff go back out to the front desk to see about how we can get to Nebraska before our gig on Tuesday night. Finally, Brennan and I get called up to talk about a new flight. The man at the desk suggests that we get a flight to Omaha and then drive (an hour and a half) to where our performance is. At this point we decide that this is our best option so we agree to this and he gets us tickets on a different airline to San Fransisco with a connection flight to Omaha. By the time we get our new tickets, we have half an hour to get from the S gate to the C gate, which is 2 shuttles away.

We run (literally) from the S gate all the way to the C gate. Meanwhile Kelly and Jeff start to head towards the C gate and get stuck in the security line because of a security breach. We all finally get to the correct gate only to find out that the flight to San Fransisco has been delayed. When we talk to the woman at this gate she tells us that we would be delayed to long to catch our flight to Omaha. So Brennan goes back out to the front desk to see about our options. In the end, the airline (whose name I won't mention) comps us hotel rooms in SeaTac and books us for a flight Tuesday morning at 7:00am. We leave the airport at about 3:00pm to go to our hotel.

We get to our hotel, which is actually quite nice, and check into our rooms. Keep in mind that we have checked all of clothing and toiletries. We have to sleep in the clothes we have been in all day and fortunately the hotel has some free shaving cream, toothbrushes, and deodorant (this is where the Lady Speed Stick comes in). So the next morning 7 grown men come down stairs to eat breakfast at 5:00am smelling like women's deodorant in wearing the same clothing we wore the day before.

We show up at the airport at 5:30am. Go to get our boarding passes and find out, that we aren't actually booked to be on any flight. Even though Jeff has our reservations in his hands they say we don't have tickets for our flight. Most of us sit down while Jeff and Brennan try to figure things out. They have to stand in 3 different lines. They get to the head of one line only to find out that that particular line is for a different airline (even though there is no way to identify the difference between the two), the get to the head of the next line only to have the woman at the counter refuse to help them because she "wasn't going to deal with this" because she "got off in 10 minutes". Finally they were able to speak to someone who actually was willing to talk to us about the situation, but was absolutely no help. We couldn't get to Nebraska (because of the delays from the previous 2 lines) until well after the performance would start and end.

Now, tired and extremely irritated we go about trying to figure out 1.) where in the world (literally) our baggage is. 2.) how we can get our money back after the non-comedy of errors. We find out that, miraculously, our bags made it to Omaha. I know what your thinking. How did they... and you couldn't...? Yeah. Still working that one over in my head. We set things up to get our bags sent back to us. Which needs to happen as soon as possible because we leave on Thursday to to fly to the Netherlands. Then we spend hours and hours trying to get our money back which at first seems like it is NOT possible.

Brennan and I go to see if we can talk to someone higher up than the people who work at the front counter. I ask one woman if I could speak to her manager. She replies "OK. I'll go get Roy". About 5 minutes later a different woman asks if we are being helped. We say "Yes. A woman left to go get Roy". She replies "Roy? Roy is on vacation". We didn't see the first woman again, but the second (much more friendly, helpful, and attractive woman) [yeah. I said it.] went and actually found a supervisor. After another couple of hours we had finally gotten our money back for the tickets that took us nowhere. After another 6 hour day, we were finally able to go home. Poor Jeff had to call the people who were running the performance in Nebraska and tell them that we weren't coming and call Nick (our pianist who was already in Nebraska) that we wouldn't make the gig and that he needed to make arrangements to come back home.

How is that for a travel story? It was the longest and shortest trip of my life!

We sincerely apologize to Phil Hesterman and Nebraska ACDA. We hope to make it back to perform for you again in the future. I think this is the first performance Groove For Thought has had to cancel in our 10 years of existence.

Onward to the Netherlands. We leave tomorrow. We'll keep you updated from the road.

Peter
GFT