Rock Tour 4 - Exeter

And so on to Exeter - now historic as the last ever CMM jumbo tour venue.


This time we were at the Salvation Army Citadel - a challenging spot parking-wise, but a lovely venue. We were welcomed by Phil Jones, one of the officers, and the team that had gathered around him to organise the event, including Margaret Pope and Chrissie Taylor.


Hospitality at the Salvation Army in Exeter was excellent and we were well looked after with a lovely lunch ahead of our matinnee performance. Unfortunately Clair had to leave us at lunch time to get back to Birmingham, which was a little worrying with Catherine suffering from a migraine, but thankfully Catherine recovered. God is good.


Salvation Army Citadels are purpose built for choirs and brass bands. This is great for us, although it did mean the large Exeter Choir had to squash in tight. The choir was made up of a huge number of areas - Exeter, Bradninch, Collumpton, Crediton, Okehampton, Lauceston and Stoke St. Gregory - the home of our Cornelius.


Specially to mark this final tour performance, a few of the cast had learnt the dance to Rock of Ages and usurped the dancers in the choir rehearsal. Results were...well... interesting.


The audience was pretty full, which was great to see, and the cast and dancers made the best use they could of the narrow, but quite high stage. The narrowness wasn't a problem until right at the very end, where Sally was kicked in the neck during the reprise of Rock of Ages. Like a pro she kept going right to the end of the dance before making a quick exit. It's amazing that the dancers have performed that dance so many times without this happening before - the chorus with the handstands in comes three times in each song, we perform that song twice in every performance, and once in every rehearsal. That's 45 choir tour rehearsals, 55 performances, as well as all the dance rehearsals leading up to the tour - 475 choruses, each with two handstands.


And this time, Richard sang in the prophetic section, which was lovely. This came after the instrumentalists had played for a minute or so - all four of them improvising at once in beautiful harmony. When God inspires people, the results can be absolutely amazing.


And then it was the long journey home (for some of us - Bill didn't have so far to go for once). Everyone arrived home absolutely exhausted, but thrilled with what has been a fantastic tour. One of the best I've been involved in, I think.


Thanks so much to Phil and all his helpers at the Salvation Army Citadel. It was a fantastic day, and we look forward to being back at the citadel for the Rock Roadshow in Exeter on January 16th.