Garden City KS

The day started with the laziness: rolling in bed, watching TV and going to the gym until 4 pm. Then the master class for local piano players and teachers. 

   

At the end of the master class i played Chopin. I almost hurt my left hand there. The piano that unfriendly. I almost stopped in the middle but my "macho" told me to go and finish it. After that my hand was hurting. I was really worried. The show is in 2 hours. Bad mood. Dark city. Nobody on the streets. No Starbucks. D-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g. Didn't want to play the evening concert. Finally we found a local cafe which looked very cozy. Eureka! Coffee time! Still no people but ... i found the environment in which i felt comfortable and could relax. I did some intellectual reading there as well.

I left like a new person (what a drama queen!). But the hand still bothered me. I was a little reluctant to start the sound check.

Finally i sat at the piano and improvised for 1 hour. 

My hand liked it and was ready for the big show.  

Well. I HAD THE BEST SHOW OF THE TOUR!!! I couldn't believe the energy that people radiated. That put me into the trance and i went nuts (i mean myself). The audience was laughing so hard that even i couldn't hold the laughter. I don't know what happened but everything i said it was just a "knee slapper" for the audience. It was also funny because the microphone didn't work in certain spots and i had to avoid them but i would always forget that. Also I made fun of the venue saying that "they are trying to censor me .. but i don't care because i have seen worst in Soviet Union". I did a lot of improv talking with the audience. There was one lady who spoke Lithuanian. Wow, that was a surprise. At the end of the concert she brought me i nice bouquet of flowers.

It was something magic that night. Every piece ended with the audience's roar. In Beethoven they started to applaud in the middle because they liked a jazzy part. These people understood me and my all "games". IT DEFINITELY WAS THE BEST SHOW! The result of it was the CD sales. That was the second biggest CD sale on tour. Amazingly my hand didn't hurt. I wasn't tired. I just wanted .. ahhhhhhhhhhhh .... beer and ahhhhhhhhh ... onion rings. Oh yeah.