That was the mantra of the production staff and stage crew during last week's BB&T Blue Skies and Golden Sands tour. A morbid metaphor, I admit, but it illustrates the number of hours and level of dedication that it required to take a show of this size on the road.

Each venue presented a new set of challenges for the staff, but luckily the North Carolina Symphony has a top-notch production team and Director of Operations Allyn Love hired a fantastic group of professional lighting and audio technicians to help put on a terrific show night after night. The majority of the work we did was unseen by the audience, done before and after the performance, and that was exactly what we intended. You might have seen a figure in black sweep across the stage or wonder how that microphone just appeared out of nowhere at just the right time. The entire show was a well-orchestrated (no pun intended) dance of onstage performances and backstage preparations. For instance, while the audience was captivated with interviews of Bill Myers (of The Monitors) and Johnny Barker (of Legends of Beach) on stage right, we would “sneak” their bands on stage left and plug in wires, move microphones, set up music stands, etc. When the interviews were over, the lights came on and there was each band, ready to go. This is just one example of the clever subterfuge used by VP for Artistic Operations and General Manager Scott Freck and his staff when writing this script.

The crew fell in love with all the music programmed on this concert, but there were two pieces that really touched us in a special way. The first was “Her Bright Eyes Haunt Me Still” beautifully performed by Jeff Warner and Laurelyn Dossett. It’s a traditional song that was arranged by local musician, Ted Ehrhard, who performed on our Blue Skies and Red Earth tour a couple of years ago. Ted is a multi-talented man and the crew has a soft spot for him because one of his other talents is tuning pianos. We have pushed pianos around Meymandi Concert Hall for him to tune for years and we marvel that a “backstage techie” has such a talent for performing and arranging music. This piece melted hearts each night and I heard nearly every production team member humming the tune at some point in the tour.

The second piece that held a place in the hearts of the crew was Ralph Herrman’s arrangement of a medley of Duke Ellington tunes. While the piece featured just the orchestra without a guest artist, you might have noticed a familiar face sitting between the audience and Music Director Grant Llewellyn. Stage space was limited in most of the venues on tour, so Principal Percussionist Rick Motylinski graciously agreed to move downstage center and play on the drum kit that would be used later on in the concert by Legends of Beach drummer Glenn Edwards. Before we left Raleigh on this tour, Rick told us, “I would not want you fellas to have to carry two sets of drums on the road just for that one piece.” So, just like Chick Webb, he sat out in front of the orchestra every night and lit his trap set on fire like he was at the Savoy Ballroom. The crew has more contact with Rick than any other musician in the orchestra because of the variety of instruments he requires for each show throughout our season. You might think back to our recent show with percussion soloist Colin Currie and realize that you could hardly see our North Carolina Symphony Percussion section in the midst of their array of instruments! Rick makes our jobs much easier with his positive attitude and gracious nature and we loved seeing him shine out front!

We did have some pitfalls along the way. There was no shortage of bumps and bruises and there were also some travel mishaps, rowdy college kids at our hotels, swarms of flies, ferry horns blaring beside the stage, gale-force winds, stages too small to hold the entire orchestra, vans that would not fit in parking garages, and.....well, you see where I am going with this. But, we knew that there would be some obstacles and unforeseen challenges. We learned from our last tour to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. This was reflected in our three-inch-thick tour binders issued before we left that had every possible bit of information one might need in every different city we were in.

On the final night in Wilmington, some of the guest artists pulled Artistic Manager Amy Russell on stage and thanked her publicly and presented her with a gift. It was a sweet show of affection from the cast to Amy and, after turning several shades of red and not exactly milking the spotlight, she slid offstage and caught her breath. She immediately turned and mentioned how they should have pulled all of the crew up and thanked us, as well. A humble gesture, but the stage crew need no thanks or praise. We do what we do because we love the live show and especially the music. The most praise we can receive is that the audience did not even notice we were around.

After 764 miles, 16 hours of driving and five 15-plus-hour days, I finally get to sit in my favorite comfy chair, sipping from my favorite coffee mug, and listening to my collection of Chopin’s Mazurkas. I must say that it feels really good to be back home in Raleigh.