New tour diary for Mansfield and Holmdel!!

[wondergirl9847]

Bristow, Mansfield & Holmdel 05/30/2004

May 30, 2004
Bristow, Mansfield & Holmdel

About ten seconds after completing and submitting my last tour report, I get the dreaded phone call. The Bristow show is canceled. Ugh. But, then again, this would give Stevie four whole days off to rest her voice, so the hope was that if we just cancel this one show, we’ll be okay. It’s nerve racking though.

And it seems I have told you all a lie...but I swear I didn’t know I was lying! We just found out that Silver Springs isn’t coming back. The band decided to 86 it. Sad, but true. It’s a long, hot summer tour, and the band is just making sure that the whole tour goes well...from start to finish. I hope everyone out there eventually understands that. I’m just as disappointed as the rest of you, I love that song. But it had a good run of 100 something shows, a nice long life...may it rest in peace. And may you all forgive me for unknowingly lying about it.

So anyway, with the news of the canceled show, our travel plans changed. We were supposed to play the show in Bristow on Wednesday and then drive that night to Mansfield. Instead, we left for Mansfield on Wednesday morning and would spend two days waiting for the call that it too, was canceled. Thankfully, that call never came and we loaded in the Mansfield show on Friday morning, as planned.

Ok, but back to our arrival in DC...

Holy cow! Cicadas are the most terrible, awful, scary, disgusting things on the planet. And they are EVERYWHERE!! They just fly in to walls (or your head) and buzz around and land everywhere. Gahhhhhhhhhhhh! I spent most of my time outdoors, running around, screeching like a little girl as cicadas blew by my head. The rest of the crew really seemed to enjoy my phobia...they have no idea what it’s like to be me. It’s insect hell in my world.

My bus driver is the best driver ever. For the most part, on days off the buses just stay parked at the hotel, but OUR bus driver takes us out on days off. Usually to Target or WalMart, or anywhere else that we feel like going. So the second day off in DC the guys went out and bought a barbecue, folding beach chairs, and tons of food and beer. We set up outside the bus in the parking lot of the hotel and barbecued all afternoon. It was great. And then the rain came. The DC area (or at least somewhere nearby) was on tornado watch, and when the rain hit, it hit hard. I’m from earthquake country, so to see the sky go green, and the light change, all the thunder and lighting, and the black clouds moving a million miles an hour and twisting together, it was totally surreal and cool. We all stood outside the bus and stared at the sky, waiting for something cool to happen, but eventually the storm passed and we were all left to find something better to do. I went to the movies and saw Shrek 2.

We left for Mansfield at 11AM on Wednesday, and it was a 9 hour drive. We were kind of in the middle of nowhere, our hotel was nestled comfortably in a business district...so we barbecued again. All afternoon, and all night..until the mosquitos ate us alive. We bought more beach chairs and all kinds of BBQ goodies, and now we’re in the market for an awning and some astroturf. We are now referring to the tour bus as our expensive trailer park.

The Mansfield show was a new wardrobe parade! Stevie wore something new on practically every song. She wore so many new things that I can’t even begin to tell you about it, hopefully you were either at the show or know someone who was. I was in shock. We had blue, red, pink, gold, black, we had lace, velvet, silk, satin, beads, hair clips, jewelry...I mean she brought it all out. Hopefully you can find pictures online somewhere, because it would take pages for me to describe each and every thing. The wardrobe room was a busy place that night.

Since we ended up canceling the show that would have been Stevie’s birthday, we gave her a little belated birthday celebration in Mansfield. We got a helium tank and pretty much filled her dressing room with about 100 balloons. Her room looked like a florist’s shop with how many flowers were in there. We also got her two cakes...one was a huge carrot cake that was decorated to look like a big present, we brought that one out during sound check and everyone came out on stage and sang happy birthday. The other cake was a bit of a joke...it was a small cake that we just put on the table in her dressing room, it was a dark chocolate cake that had a little figure of the grim reaper on it and he was standing in a graveyard...only the gravestones had the names of the songs that have been taken out of the set since we started this tour a year ago. It was the funniest cake, she loved it.

Load out was slow, as the loading dock only had two spaces for trucks, and we have seven of them. But we got out eventually and headed straight to Homdel, New Jersey for a show the next day. The dressing rooms in Holmdel were under the stage, but there was no elevator, there’s just a big hole in the floor and they lower the wardrobe cases (all 25 of them) one at a time through the hole. It was tedious. The show itself was great, although pretty uneventful, Stevie kept up with Mansfield as far as the plethora of wardrobe additions go.

We had a short drive that night to Scranton, and now we have two days off here. I’m thinking I’ll hit both the mall and the movie theater, and there’s also rumors of a Harry Houdini museum...the weird ideas people come up with never cease to amaze me, but it might be worth checking out.

Off to explore the many wonders of Scranton, PA...

CB

[wondergirl9847]

That cake sounds hilarious!! Destiny Rules...RIP....Silver Springs....RIP.....Running Through the Garden....RIP...

Sorry all you SS fans...

[estranged4life]

Originally Posted by wondergirl9847

The other cake was a bit of a joke...it was a small cake that we just put on the table in her dressing room, it was a dark chocolate cake that had a little figure of the grim reaper on it and he was standing in a graveyard...only the gravestones had the names of the songs that have been taken out of the set since we started this tour a year ago. It was the funniest cake, she loved it.

I needed a good chuckle to make me feel better...That cake had to be hilarious to see, Wished she would've taken pictures of it and posted 'em.

Brian j.

[GardenStateGirlie]

I have a picture in my mind and it's making me laugh. When this tour is finally over, i'll miss reading all of these little anecdotes

[WelshWitchPMD]

I did see Cory carrying a bunch of balloons while I was on the backstage tour. Now I know why.

That cake is too funny. I wish I saw that.

She also says that SS was dropped because it's going to be a long summer tour. I wonder if they are adding more dates.

[goldie]

I wonder if they ever made it to Scranton? They would be VERY close to me if they did!

[Vianna]

Thanks for posting this-I love reading these-Cory rocks!

Vianna

[golddust]

~~~I knew there were a lot more Stevie outfits at Mansfield. I even started a thread about Stevie and her many shawls cloaks etc.~~~

[cliffdweller]

With all the wardrobe changes recently word MUST have gotten back to Stevie about the fans' displeasure with her rather, um, limited stage attire. I hope "the black dress" is gone for good!

Thanks for posting the new entry!

[strandinthewind]

I am confused - I though Stevie just wore shawls we had no seen in years OVER the black corset and skirt (although she wore a different black skirt for past of the Madison that did not have that spotted velvet over lay). Is she now wearing a different dress as well as diff. shawls?

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by estranged4life

I needed a good chuckle to make me feel better...That cake had to be hilarious to see, Wished she would've taken pictures of it and posted 'em.

Brian j.

Hope you're doing okay Brian.

I have a feeeling that pretty soon the only place we're going to see Stevie singing is in Celine Dion's special "throat theater" in Vegas.