Ok, now that I have finished telling you all about my fantastic weekend (Solid Gold, Legendary night, Breath of fresh air, Bring it home) - I promised that I would give you all the dramas.

Quick summary for those of you that asked me about the dancing - that was the low point of the whole weekend. Just about everything leading up to that was bad, once we performed and got it over with the weekend got better and better (see previous posts). Now this is not to say we danced badly, we danced ok given the circumstances. But I will start at the beginning. Be prepared - this will be a long rant of a post.

The 9am departure time found myself and Shienne ready, driver #1 in the shower, driver #2 still missing, pans and stand now being sprayed. When we finally got going with only 6 of the 10. Turns out we’re picking up the others. So we stop in Half Way Tree, Duhaney Park, Mandela Highway and Spanish Town. With everyone in tow, we then get into which way to drive. The 2 cars are of different minds but finally we get that sorted out, only to have a phone call a half hour later tell us that the way we were now going is going to take us longer cause of bad roads. Sigh.

The drive goes without incident and some hours later we get to MoBay. The decision is to not head straight for the hotel but up to the venue so we can check out the stage and do a sound check. On arrival at the venue it turns out the person with the passes is at the hotel, so we turn around and go get the passes, turn around again and head back to the venue. We’re all tired and hungry but figure it’s better to get the sound check out of the way.

It’s about 2:30pm and we are backstage. John Legend’s band is on doing a sound-check. The guy in charge of production says there’s one more band before us. Ok, no prob. We wait. Then we get a call to say they have changed our hotel. We are no longer staying at Half Moon which is only a few minutes from the venue. Instead we will be at Sunset Beach Resort which is much further. I am here to tell you, it is damn far!! turn around go back into MoBay, drive through MoBay, drive past the airport, head into Freeport, and finally you will find Sunset Beach. What this means is that we no longer have time to go to the hotel at all because there will be traffic coming back and we will be late. So we have to stay and dress there.

Tis now makes food an immediate concern because it is now after 4pm and the same band is still on stage. It appears there is food in the hospitality area but it won’t be ready until 5pm. So we wait some more figuring we would have done the sound check by then for a 6pm start. Note we are the first group on stage.

5pm approaches and John Legend’s band is still on stage!!! Amazing!! We get concerned now because as I said we are supposed to be on stage at 6pm. The guy in charge still says he has to follow his order so we have to wait. At this point we are figuring the show will be starting late because there are other bands to sound check after us too.

In checking on the food situation, it turns out, we are not on their list at all for food. We have not been catered to. Hmmm, o….k…. Lady #1 (on the phone) says it was never in the arrangement to provide food for us, they have catered for exactly 53 persons, all of whom are accounted for and don’t include our 10. So Lady #2 (much nicer - in hospitality) says she is going to try to get us passes for the general food court area so we can eat. Lady #2 invites us to go ahead and have some tea and coffee while waiting. One of our guys works up some biscuits because, by this time, we the dancers are feeling weak.

The passes never materialize so tea and biscuits it will have to be till after we perform. On my third cup of tea, Lady #1 enters only to come over and say with the fakest smile I have seen (I am paraphrasing) “Please remember we only have a certina amount of everything and we need the tea to last over the three nights for the persons we catered for.” The woman was grudging us a couple cups of tea!!!! The response from one of the guys was “we just trying to stay alive lady”. I held my tongue.

With the little bit of sugar in our system, we head to the dressing area to change. We get word that the band is going on stage to do their sound check finally. Amen!!! All’s going well. Shienne and I are wriggling into panty hose and tying on tiny gold fabric then all hell breaks loose!! We get a panicked phone call to say “Come now!!!  They are starting the show!!!” WTF!! Screw the makeup! Draw back the hair! Drag on the shoes! Drop everything else and run through the hospitality area, round the building, up the hill, up a set of stairs, behind the stage into the wings.

Whew! We get there in the middle of the song before ours, short one male dancer! He shows up just in time for us to head on stage. So now we are tired, hungry, dirty, stressed, disoriented and totally unprepared. We plaster on our smiles and hit the stage. Forget the dips, no fancy turns. Let’s just get this over with. Smile. Step-two-three, turn-two-three. Smile. Where’s the hand? Oh, whoops, missed that one. Smile. Catch back the beat. Smile. Where’s my partner? What you doing over there? It’s not my turn now, I just went! Smile. We did our thing, not as well as practiced but not bad given the circumstances.

Following our performance, we changed and watched the rest of the show. but the “hospitality” continued. When we headed back down to that area later in the evening, the glares were like knives. Whispered conferences, glances over shoulders. Man, we felt bad even taking a chocolate out of a bowl. I could continue this rant but getting tired of typing now. Y’all should now understand my lack of enthusiasm when responding to the “so, how’d the dancing go?”