TP traveled to Chicago to perform on May 9th for the opening of the Art Institute of Chicago’s new Modern Wing! Bryan and Jason made the long drive in the van with all the equipment. (Thanks guys!) The rest of us flew out on Thursday. Courtney, Kevin, Jenny, Emily, and I flew out of LA, while Kelsey made the flight from Seattle.
This was Jenny’s first time performing for TP, how exciting! Emily graciously took time out of her schedule (ie: skipped classes) to help us for this gig. Also, this was the first time several of us had the opportunity to perform with Kelsey. Good Stuff!
After arriving in Chicago, we checked into our hotel, The Palmer House® Hilton. We were only a short walk from the Art Institute, so we all checked out the stage we were going to perform on. Finally, we ate some grub at Miller’s Pub and called it a night.
Friday was a loooong day of rehearsal. In the morning, we brought all of our equipment to the stage so we could set everything up. We had a loading crew help us, which was nice because we needed to drag everything up the stairs. Once we had all the drums in place and did sound check, we had a chance to meet the members of Project Bandaloop, the group of dancers that would be performing to our music. These were no ordinary dancers though. They don't like dancing on floors... that's too boring. So instead they would be rappelling from the top of the newly constructed building and performing mid-air on the wall! This looked like a lot of fun and Emily really wished she could also hang 50 feet in the air on a little rope to try it!
When we had breaks from rehearsing, we would head back to our green room to take a load off. We were fed quite well here with a plentiful bounty of fruits, veggies, crackers, snacks, and juice along with our meals. They also had the world's greatest granola bar for breakfast! I'm a big granola bar fan, and these things were just stupendous! Unfortunately, the staff took them away before lunchtime so I only got to eat one... and I didn't even take a picture of it!
Before the end of the day, we had finalized our song/dance arrangement and needed to run a dress rehearsal. The girls were fitted in the morning for their custom outfits, which were red and delightfully shiny. The guys wore the oh-so-comfortable fundoshi. Our run through went well and we were finally done after being on site for over 12 hours.
Saturday was our performance day, but we had a few hours of free time, so we became tourists and walked around town. Kevin really had the urge to get high, so first we walked to the Sears Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the United States. A little factoid I learned was that it will be renamed to Willis Tower this year :( Well... at least we can say we were here when it was still Sears Tower. The elevator going up to the Skydeck was super smooth and fast. It took us to the 99th floor in about a minute and a few birds even gave us a brief history about the building. I was disappointed because usually it goes to the 103rd floor, but it was closed for renovation.
View from Sears Tower - Nice shot of Lake Michigan huh?
Great views in every direction! While I was commenting on the nice ocean view, Kevin gave me sort of a "you're an idiot" look. Apparently Chicago is not near an ocean... and the large body of water turned out to be Lake Michigan. Who would've known?
We also saw Buckingham Fountain and walked in Millennium Park where we saw a large wall fountain with faces that spit out water (artistic!), and my personal favorite, a large metal bean called Cloud Gate. It doesn't sound exciting, but not only was this the biggest bean I've ever seen, it was also mirror surfaced! Genius!
The face on the wall changes and sometimes spits out water! No joke..
Cloud Gate - The greatest Bean I've ever seen
After our sight seeing, we ate and got ready for the 10pm performance. This night just happened to be one of the coldest nights of our trip, so we ended up performing in 40 degree weather wearing very little clothing (almost nothing...) I guess that made for an exciting experience! Everything went well and the audience enjoyed it. Once we warmed up and packed our equipment, it was finally time to eat some Chicago pizza! We strategically waited until AFTER our performance to indulge in this food!
In front of Buckingham Fountain.Chicago was an awesome city and we had a great trip! The only thing I regret was I didn't eat a Chicago-style hot dog! What was I thinking? Oh well, next time...
:)
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