Denver’s PrideFest, and the month of June in general, came and went in a flash. This is always the busiest time of year for shows!
The first event was at the Official PrideFest Party on June 14th at Hamburger Mary’s. We thought we had it all planned out and ready to go when I got a phone call the day before: there was no one available to do the sound. So that night I pulled out the music gear and started piecing together clips from my songs onto my laptop, made sure there was an extra 9V battery for the headset mic, and then called in to work in order to let them know I’d do a 6 am – 3 pm shift. With a few hours before the party started, Mary’s let me set up at their DJ booth and try it all out with sound system. It turned out well & it was a fun kickoff to PrideFest!
The following week was pretty much all a blur – getting 1,000 CD samplers ready and stuffed (thanks to everyone who helped!), remixing and prepping the songs to perform, rehearsing Friday night with the crew, doing sound checks Saturday afternoon, dropping in to see Tracy Young at Tracks, and then performing at 3:30 am at the B&G Productions Studio 69 Afterhours party. With two and a half hours of broken sleep, I got up Sunday morning to pack my bags and meet up with the Stoli guys at their float in Cheesman Park. We did end up giving out all 1,000 CD samplers during the parade! Once that ended, I changed and met up with the crew again to see how the mainstage was setup and talk about some final tweaks on our show. It was a new approach and very different from last year. Instead of costumes and props and choreography, this performance was completely freestyle and intuitive – something that terrified me (I like to know ahead of time what I’m doing on stage), but something that was worth trying. Overall it felt great.
After that I wandered around Civic Center Park to talk to friends and hang out. I got to do a radio interview and also talked to a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News.
One thing that sticks out for that day was something that happened too quickly to think about. The headliner for PrideFest was 80’s pop diva Tiffany. We were all hanging out at the mainstage waiting for her to start when my friend Rustin called. He said, “Tiffany needs another dancer, can you do it?” So within a minute, I was in the dressing room shaking hands with Tiffany and finding out the structure for her show and when we were to be on stage with her. She was incredibly sweet and her performance rocked! It was a burst of adrenaline to be out there with thousands of people watching and having no dance moves or plan for what to do on stage. It just happened and it was incredible.
