Michael W. Smith w/ EPSO

On Friday, the EPSO accompanied Michael W. Smith for a concert at the Don Haskins Center, which is the gym at which the UTEP Basketball team hosts its home games. For those of you know who may be unfamiliar with Michael W. Smith (as I was before Friday), he is a pretty big deal in the Christian music scene, having won a bunch of awards and such.

I'd never played this sort of a gig before, in a back-up orchestra for a band in a large venue like this, so the entire experience was sort of new and exciting. I got to the Don Haskins about 10 before 4, unpacked quickly, got up on stage. There seemed to be some confusion amongst the tech crew, as the rehearsal didn't really get underway until about 4:20. Even at that point, not all of our stand lights were functioning and there were still some seating issues to work out amongst the woodwind and brass.

None of us saw the music prior to showing up to the rehearsal, and it all went along pretty smoothly. Most of the music for the concert was "the whole band," with full orchestra, Michael and the singers, etc, all out. A few pieces were for orchestra only, and the band played a few songs without the orchestra.

A lot of the music was in 5 and 6 flat key signatures, which the string section wasn't too happy with. Other than that, the music was not difficult. Another thing that the entire orchestra wasn't too happy about, is the fact that we had been told the rehearsal would end at 6 pm, and it in fact ended at 6:30. There was a lot of discussion about this during the dinner break, and at today's Holiday rehearsal we were told that it would be discussed at tomorrow's morning rehearsal. I'll let you know what happens when I go to work tomorrow.

I'm sure that many of you have seen the commercials on TV for "top Christian hits," etc, where they show the full venue, all arms up. This is exactly what the show was like. Granted, for the most part, the audience was totally in the dark, so we couldn't actually see the audience, but that's how I pictured it. For a couple of songs, the orchestra didn't play, so I was just observing the whole situation.

It was, to say the least, a bit strange. Michael W. Smith is a great performer, and the music was tolerable, but the feeling of being in one of those commercials didn't sit well with me.

One of my violin colleagues, during the dinner break, stated, "This is one of those gigs, where you show up, go through the motions, do a lot of faking, take the money, and run." Words of wisdom.