Temple Theater Viroqua

The Temple theater in Viroqua is beautiful. They may be fairly new to the business of running a theater, but they get big points for effort. They had sold out the show and were very proud of it, unfortunatly the storm had other ideas and we ended up playing to about 2/3rds of a house. But they laughed a lot and made up for their diminished numbers.
The stage was a little narrower than we're used to and Jimmy and Lee were practically off stage in the band. It was tight backstage too -


under our road box was the only place Becca could be backstage without being in sitelines! Because of the storm they wanted to open the house early so that they didn't have people stranded in the lobby in the cold, so we had our sound check a half an hour earlier so they could start letting people in to the theater at 6:30p. It wasn't a total loss though, the green room was comfortable and there was plenty of sandwich fixin's left over pizza, veggies and fruit. This last picture is the view from the loading door of the theater at intermission. Hello winter storm!

Driving to Viroqua

The storm was in its "lull" period by the time we got up and headed out Saturday. We had a wonderful breakfast at the Kitchen Table restaurant in Marshfield and maveled at the huge snow drifts that had been plowed down the middle of the street. The road conditions on the drive to Viroqua were pretty clear by the time we got on the road around noon. Not everyone was upset by the snow - This view reminded me of the Lyric "When there's a Winter Storm, safe in your shanty warm" Around 2:15 or so, the storm started to move in again, we saw the beginnings of the 35 mph winds and our visibility dropped as if someone had switched on the Storm Switch. I don't think the weather service is exagerating what we're in for!

From the National Weather Service...

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST SUNDAY.

SNOW...OCCASIONALLY MIXED WITH SNOW PELLETS AND SLEET...WILL FALL ACROSS THE AREA TONIGHT. A BAND OF HEAVY SNOW WILL WORK EAST ACROSS THE AREA TONIGHT. SNOWFALL RATES UP TO TWO INCHES AN HOUR WILL BE POSSIBLE IN THIS BAND. ALONG WITH THE HEAVY SNOW... SOME RUMBLES OF THUNDER WILL BE HEARD AT TIMES. ACCUMULATIONS OVERNIGHT WILL RANGE FROM 3 TO 8 INCHES. ANY ICE ACCUMULATIONS IN THE VICINITY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER SHOULD REMAIN A TENTH OF AN INCH OR LESS.

A LULL IN THE SNOWFALL MAY DEVELOP LATER TONIGHT OR EARLY SATURDAY MORNING AND CONTINUE INTO SATURDAY AFTERNOON AS THE MAIN STORM SYSTEM GATHERS STRENGTH OVER THE CENTRAL PLAINS. AS THIS MOVES TOWARD THE AREA...ANOTHER ROUND OF SIGNIFICANT PRECIPITATION...OF LONGER DURATION... WILL MOVE INTO THE AREA... WITH THIS EXPECTED TO FALL MAINLY IN THE FORM OF SNOW. ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 10 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE FROM SATURDAY NIGHT INTO SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

TO COMPOUND THIS SITUATION... INCREASING SOUTHEAST WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH...GUSTING TO 35 MPH...WILL BECOME THE NORM SATURDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHT. THIS COMBINED WITH THE SNOW THAT FALLS TONIGHT... AND THE SNOW THAT FALLS SATURDAY NIGHT...WILL CAUSE SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN VISIBILITIES...WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS TO DEVELOP SATURDAY NIGHT.

SNOWFALL TOTALS FROM THE STORM OF AT LEAST 8 INCHES...WITH ISOLATED TOTALS NEAR 15 INCHES...ARE EXPECTED BY SUNDAY. THIS STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CREATE CRIPPLING AFFECTS ON TRAVEL ACROSS THE AREA THROUGH THE WEEKEND.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW... SLEET... AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT STORM AND TRAVEL THIS WEEKEND IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

Spencer

We played our 23rd performance in Spencer WI, about 10 miles outside Marshfield and about half an hour from Wausau. We are back in the land of the Sold Out House. We had about 500 people tonight who loved the show. Spencer/Marshfield is a really friendly town, everyone has been extremely nice to us here. Judy Berdan's mother brought us freshly baked cookies (they didn't even make it to intermission!) The theater is another High School Auditorium type, a bit of a cinder block box (in which the trombone was REALLY loud!). We are coming up on some weather this weekend - anywhere from 6-16 inches of snow between now and the end of the tour. So tonight at the end of the pre-show announcements, Sally (doing the announcing) said she was glad we were at the show tonight because we were going to probably spend the rest of the weekend shoveling snow! We brought our pre-show music in under her and actually got a laugh for "Oh the weather outside is frightful"

The booth was small, there was a small perch that we could have gotten to by climbing a series of straight ladders attached to the wall, but Craig and Bill opted to kick me out of the booth to the back of the house. It was pretty tight in there, even though none of us had had bait and bowl chili!



Our hotel was happy to have us, even if they couldn't spell our name! and the ushers dressed up as fishermen, one even threatened to had out leaches to all of the ladies in attendance ! We really liked Spencer.

Eau Claire Part II

Our second night in Eau Claire, we had more people than the first house. They were much more responsive too, which made for a fun show. The wind had died down, so there was no mystery sound of wind blowing through the smoke vents like last night, it was a quicker, fun show. After our trip to the Leinie Lodge we headed out to find some lunch and all of us (except Craig) independantly wound up at the same sandwich shop a couple of blocks from the hotel. It was a relaxing afternoon of good food and good conversation. We may still have been a little punchy from the afternoon, but it made for a good show.

When we left Friday morning, the desk clerk at the Ramada told us how much she enjoyed the show and that a lot of people drove in to town to see the show and stayed at the Ramada. She got many positive reviews from the guests as they checked out each morning!



One of the features of the State Theater is that they have a piano player playing in the lobby before the show and during intermission. It's a nice touch. He said that he used to play piano at the theater a long time ago and one day asked if the piano was still in the lobby, if anyone played it and if there was anything wrong with it. The answers being Yes, no no, he asked if he could play during the shows that were booked in. He played for tips and an oportuniy to hawk his CDs and it was a really charming touch.

We came, we saw, we tasted the beer!

One of the highlights of our tour was our trip to the Leinenkugel Brewery (in Chippewah Falls, Wisconsin!) Since we were only 20 minutes away we couldn't turn down a chance to play at the real Leinie Lodge. Bill, Becca, Craig, Steve and I made the trip and took the tour. It was a beautiful day for it, sunny and chilly, but not cold. We had a nice tour guide (who had actually seen Guys On Ice in Milwaukee) and our tour of the brewery was quite informative.
Both before and after the tour we had some time to shop and taste in the gift shop. A good time was had by all and everyone came away with some fun purchases. I'm surprised that no one went home with an adirondak chair, the guys couldn't stop talking about how comfortable they were!

Eau Claire

The last time the Rep toured, we played in Eau Claire as well, we played The Zorne Arena or the Zorina as we called it. It was a basketball arena, very strange. The State Theater in Eau Claire resembles the Zorina in that it was a huge "Barn" of a place. It looked a lot like an old movie theater and the house was very dark, it was hard to get any pictures where you could actually see what the place looks like. Even though our two shows in Eau Claire were not sold out, they were still good houses that enjoyed the show a lot. Jimmy was not with us, we had Jake Endries on the piano, it was a much different show with someone else driving the train (musically) but he was a nice guy and we had some fun. Our hotel was only a block from the theater, so we were able to walk between the two easily. The people were very nice and overall, we had a good time.