2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 23

I performed two assemblies this morning at an elementary school in Palmdale. Both groups were really great. We had to hurry from there to get to Gorman where I performed for a group comprised of K-8 students. I've never done an assembly before for 7-8 graders so I was a little unsure of what to expect in terms of their participation and response. I decided to not try to encourage the older kids to participate, but rather just do my show and let them decide... the thought being that if they didn't feel pressured to participate, then they might actually do it. And that turned out to be the case, thankfully, and they had fun with it. I made sure to pick a couple of the oldest kids to help with certain volunteer things, and they were glad to oblige. At the beginning of my song, "No Big Deal", I was a little worried because about half of the kids remained seated and didn't want to get up and dance along. But I just shrugged it off and continued with the song, and I was glad to see as the song went on that more and more kids were getting up to dance. By the end of the song, there wasn't a kid in the whole room who wasn't dancing. I wasn't expecting that, but that was really cool.

I started to feel a cold coming on after the last show, and I have to knock on wood, because it seems like when we're traveling, I get really sick every now and then, but usually only when I've got a break from shows for a few days. That's the case right now, as my next show isn't until next Tuesday in Las Vegas. On one of our trips to Utah a couple years ago, I had 25 shows in 23 days, or something like that, and I got really sick at one point, losing my voice entirely, but it came on at the only point during that stretch when I had two days off, and my voice was back... barely, but good enough to perform... in time for the next show. It's like my body knows, okay, now's the time... let the virus through!

We stopped for dinner and then had a long drive back to the KOA, where we hung out for a while before going to bed.