We survived!!!

This was the performance plagued with trouble and bad luck from the start... So let's recap the ways in which things went wrong...

First and foremost, Jaime was called away on a week's trip to Seattle for work. Right over top of the gig. Since there is no cancelling of shows, we did what we had to do - we found fill-ins for the evening.

Morgan Harris, our beautiful manager, and Michelle Schmidbauer, our unofficial "band mom", both stepped up to the plate and agreed to help. Morgan took the vocals, Michelle took some bass and keyboard parts.

Then Morgan wakes up Saturday morning (5 days before the gig) only to find she has no voice. Excellent. We all spent the next few rehearsals in a panic, wondering whether or not she'd be able to sing. We managed to squeeze in only 3 rehearsals prior to the show, so it was definitely nerve-wracking for us all.

Meanwhile, Bel wakes up one morning and ends up sick as well. And then Bang Bang decided to twist his ankle at work on Thursday morning. So we've got a whole crew of injured, sick, or missing band members!

And, to top it all off, as if we didn't have enough stacked against us, the weather people predicted a huge snowstorm that would conveniently fall right on top of our performance.

So what was the end result??

Morgan sang beautifully, we all agreed that it was the best we'd heard her sing yet. She worked the crowd and was definitely a rock star for the evening! Michelle played the keyboards and bass so easily it was almost frightening... She maintained a calm attitude that helped keep the rest of the band calm the entire time, as well. Bel managed to ignore her illness and played fine that night. Bang Bang's twisted ankle was almost unnoticable, as he took on his solo as if it were nothing, this time even throwing in a tom rendition of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" that definitely had a bunch of us laughing. And Jaime is now safe and sound, home in New Jersey.

So we did it! We managed to get through a gig even though somehow it seemed like fate was trying to tell us that it wasn't meant to be for us.

So now for our thank you's:
Morgan - you are unbelievable, talented, and adorable on stage! Thank you so much for stepping up like you did and filling that role, you really should be proud.
Michelle - your talents are endless! Learning the bass guitar in 3 days is no easy task, but you did it like it was the easiest thing you've ever been asked to do. Amazing! We truly appreciate all that you do for us, even when we're pushing you up on stage.

Thank you to everyone who ignored the weatherman's reports (which, as we all know, ended up being COMPLETELY WRONG anyway!) and came to support us. You guys are the best! We're really glad they were wrong that night, too, so you all got an easy ride home.

Thanks to the Saint for having us, when we return on April 15th we'll be our normal selves again.