The Final Rehearsal

On the afternoon of Friday, July 1, we finished our final rehearsal before playing our first concert as Avalanche. Everyone was pretty quiet when it ended...we knew we had done everything we could possibly do to be ready for this debut. I  looked around and surveyed what we had built, and what we had accomplished.....and thought about what the following day really represented. It represented nearly three years of very hard work for me...the building process had begun long before there was a band. It represented a return from the depths of Hell...a resurrection of my life. It represented thousands of hours of writing, playing, dealing, driving, and keeping my eye on the prize. As I looked at the $75,000.00 worth of state-of-the-art stage gear and PA, the twenty four flight cases all gleaming, numbered, and with AVALANCHE and the word "Fragile" emblazoned on each one, I thought about my life, and how close I had come to death, and realized...just how true that was...and just how lucky I had been to have survived...to see this day arrive. And I thought about how I wished my Mom could be here to see this. The next day would be validation...and a tribute to the dedication and loyalty of ten people, who dared to dream a dream, and against all odds...make it happen. I was very happy. And I was very proud of Charles, Mark, and Barry...and all the guys in our crew who plunged into this thing as if it was their dream too. And I know ...that was because it was. And I was proud of myself, too. I wasn't really nervous or worried. We were ready. There was really nothing more we could do to prepare for this gig. The only real unanswered question was whether or not we were as good as we thought we were...and only an audience can tell you that. But the record had been played four times a day for 13 weeks on eight stations...and the word was...that the crowd that was expected to show up for our debut was going to be huge. That is more than any band playing its first gig can hope for...a real audience...and I hoped our music would do our talking for us...