Friday, August 26, 2011

Summer Love Tour

We're right now taking this photo in Sisters, Oregon. What are we doing in Sisters?
Did you guess that we are on our way to Bend, Oregon to see A Prairie Home Companion Summer Love Tour 2011? You guessed right!

The Les Schwabe Amphitheater did not earn our love due to the chair issue. Reading the web site of the amphitheater the night before we left for the show, I learned that only short chairs are allowed, with legs of no more than six inches. Or you can sit on blankets. We do not own short legged chairs. I called Mom and Aunt Carol first thing in the morning, knowing that Mom wouldn't want to sit on a blanket for hours, and she promptly ran off to see if she could buy short legged chairs. It being the end of the season, they were in short supply, but she located a triple folding lounge chair that fit the bill and off we went.

What did we see when we got there? Tons of people bringing in full sized chairs. Mom complained, security nicely asked people to move, 95% of the people moved but not this guy sitting in front of us. Security asked nicely, I asked nicely (Excuse me sir, but we did not bring our tall chairs because they are not allowed and instead we are sitting on this blanket. Could you please move your chair so we can see?) Nothing. He just shrugged and said "I didn't know" as if that rendered him invisible. So this was my sitting flat view of the show. The leaning over to the right got me a view of the stage and a very sore half of my sitz bone the next day.


Sun going down.

Pre-show pictures. We played the card game Citadels while we waited to see if the tall chair people would have to move.

It wasn't a full show (which I found a bit disappointing also, and a bit of un-truth in advertising) but we got lots of segments with the sound guy. I love the sound guy. There are two on the show itself and we had Fred Newman. He did an excellent whale, among other things.
Garrison spent a lot of time walking through the crowd and singing while hoards of people took pictures. These are the ones that Matt captured.

Fun things about the show: the sound effects segments, the sing-along, the sing-along through intermission. Not so fun things: the amphitheater's inability to enforce their own policies, the fact that we didn't get a full show.

3 comments:

Sara K. said...

Looks like it was mostly fun! Too bad about the chairs and the partial show. That totally stinks. I can't believe that guy had the gall to stay put and not move. And why didn't security come back?

Matt said...

Because he was old and they assumed that all old people have "medical issues."

Patricia said...

Actually, Matt and I chatted with security about the issue, providing an interchange that amused me.
Security: I usually am quite firm about this issue, but I'm making an exception tonight.
Me (generally confused about her statement): Why? Because old people can't go on the web site and find out what kind of chairs are and aren't allowed?
Matt: Or NPR listeners aren't able to follow directions?
Security (laughing): No, I mean that older people require a bit more chair.