The Night the Lights Went Out in Lethbridge (Where?)

Bonus blog today! I've been writing a blog every other day, but last night and today are kind of big news (at least for me). The "Life on a Bus" blog will have to wait a few days.

Last nights show in Lethbridge was far from magical. After a rough start to the show (some key lights were mysteriously missing), we had to deal with less than efficient followspot operators. Definitely not the sharpest tools in the tool shed. Once Mel finally got them to understand that there are three blue men and each of them deserves a spot of their own, not all three on one guy, that's when the real fun began.

Mel didn't see it happen, but I did. Suddenly, all the lights over the stage went out. All that was left on were the audience lights. The battery back up for the console started beeping and the headset system went out so we had no communication to the followspot operators. I yelled at Mel (not in a bad way, the music was really loud), "Mel, the rig just shut down, we've got no headsets!" He bolted backstage to see what happened.

Here's a picture of what the stage looked like from the audience:Luckily, it was during a part of the show that was not heavily dependent on lighting. So we had some time to sort out what was happening.

For this show, we draw just over 600 amps on each of the three phases of power. Which means we draw a total of roughly 1800 amps to run the lighting equipment alone. . I know 1800 amps sounds like a lot, considering your standard household wall socket is only rated for 20 amps, but 1800 total amps is nothing. Think about the big rock shows of the 70's and 80's. Huge lighting rigs with 1000's of par cans. Those rigs drew easily 2400 amps per leg, 7,200 amps total! 1800 is nothing. Sound has their own power source, as does video.

In Lethbridge, we were on two separate 400 amp power services. One of them was locked in a small brick room with no vents. Hence, it heated up and the breaker blew. And it blew hard. So hard, it basically tack welded it self in the off position. People ran to grab fans to cool it off enough to re-throw the breaker. Peanut (our power/dimmer guy) scrambled to patch all 600 amps of equipment into the one 400 amp service we had left.

Thankfully, video was not affected, so I was able to continue to run video cues until we were back online. Which also came at the right time. I was able to re-strike the bulbs on most of the rig, just in time for the first of a series of big "rock" numbers.

Which also caused Peanut a bit of panic. How do we run 600 amps of power on a 400 amp service? Simple turn off half of the rig. I had the crew switch off every other light in the rig to make sure we didn't over draw. And then I ran the strobe lights (which spike amperage when they fire) at 50 percent to make sure we didn't spike above 400. Peanut kept an amp meter attached to the power and gave us a constant report of what we were drawing so I would know when to pull back.

We limped through the rest of the show with half the lights, but the audience was none the wiser. They still laughed and clapped.

The joy of doing live performances.

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Today is a special day as well. I am currently sitting on the ice at the Rexall center.

I look up to see some important banners:

You're in Oil Country, baby!

Home of the National Hockey League Edmonton Oilers. This is the team that put hockey on the map in my little childhood brain.

Which helps answer another one of those questions, "How does a boy from Hawai'i, where there is no ice, love a winter sport like hockey?"

I think I was predisposed to liking hockey, it must be in my genes. My dad is from Minnesota, as close to hockey central you can get south of the Canadian border. I remember he used to take pictures for his college news paper of the schools hockey games, so he too, enjoyed the sport. Back in the late 70's and early 80's. the USA television network used to carry all of the New York Rangers games and my dad and I would watch.

But that's not when I fell in love with the sport. That came during the dynasty years of the Edmonton Oilers, when Wayne Gretzky and company ruled the ice in this house.

It was the spring of 1984 when I watched with bated breath, the Edmonton Oilers hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time. From there, I was hooked. I followed them all the way until 1992, when a young and really bad team played their first season with the NHL, the Ottawa Senators.

Today, hangs the great reminders of those years gone by. The banners in the picture above touting the franchises achievements over the years, including the dynasty of the 80's. Above the stage hangs the retired numbers of the greats of that time:
Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Grant Fuhr, Jari Kurri, Wayne Gretzky, All members of the Oilers dynasty. All important names to the sport of hockey.

But for me, no one more important the #31, Grant Fuhr. Grant was the goalie for dynasty. He was magic on the ice and amazing to watch. Before Felix Potvin ushered in the "butterfly" style of goaltending, Grant Fuhr was the king of the acrobatic flop. He wasn't pretty, and you just couldn't figure out how he kept the puck out of the net. He didn't have the lowest goals against average, or the most wins, or a ton of shut outs. But he did have Wayne "The Great One" Gretzky say (and I'm paraphrasing here) "There is no other goalie I would want in net going into the third period with a one goal lead." That's confidence in your goalie. And the dynasty had to have that. They were an offense first team. Even their defensive players were scorers (Paul Coffey).

In 1990, we found out why Grant Fuhr was so good. He was abusing cocaine!! He was suspended from hockey for 4 months before rejoining the league. For a while, he never played the same. But in 1995-1996 hockey season, he returned with a vengeance playing 79 games of an 82 game season for the St. Louis Blues. A record that still holds today.

He retired in 2000, the first black player to make a dent in the NHL. And in 2003 was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Now you know why my jersey number and bag tags are always "31". And why my email address is dboland31. To honor the great coke head, Grant Fuhr. Anyone who can play great while high (although officially, he was never high while playing), then go to rehab and still play great, rocks.


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Tomorrow I travel to Mecca.

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