Edinburgh: Opening Night!
Brooke Privett
Today has been a very funny day! You want to know why? Because I did not know that tonight was opening night until we got to the castle! I thought all day today that this was another dress rehearsal and filming night. It’s okay though, because it kept me from being nervous all day.
I went to the grocery store for the first time today, which was a neat trip. It is so cool to see all the different products and packaging that they have here. For example Cadberry is the equivalent to our Hershey, if you want to buy the kind of lemonade that we drink you have to buy “cloudy” lemonade, and the 2 liter bottles here are tall and skinny. I didn’t buy anything, but they did have some cream soda that I’ve got my eye on! During the afternoon I pretty much stayed at the internet café to do some catching up. For dinner we had Chicken Kiev and it was fabulous! I haven’t had chicken in forever!
When we were getting ready to load up the busses, Mr. Bernhardt handed everyone in the band a Tattoo lapel pin, which is very nice, so we could wear them on our uniforms. Gotta love a souvenir! We then headed up to the castle and paraded in with the other busses. It was so funny because the people on the sidewalks were taking our pictures even though we have tinted windows on the bus! We got off the bus at 7:15, but the show doesn’t start until 9:00. So we sat for a very long time in our holding room.
The show started and I actually wasn’t nervous. It was awkward during our performance because the PA system wasn’t working, so we didn’t hear any of the announcements and we had to walk out onto the esplanade in dead silence. After our songs everybody in the band said that they thought the performance just felt weird. I described it as frantic! But the audience still loved us!
Did I mention that the weather was actually gorgeous last night! The problem is that it doesn’t get dark until 10:00 here when it is nice, (yeah, the sun also rises at 3:30 a.m.!) so the crowd couldn’t really see all of the lighting effects. It was a great opening night, but I bet Saturday’s performances are even better, especially since there is a fireworks display on Saturday performances!
Oh, here’s something neat you can try out: if you Google the Edinburgh Military Tattoo website there is a link on the homepage that sends you to a live webcam feed of the esplanade. So if you get on at about 3:00 p.m. your time (any night but Saturday that is, Saturday shows you would have to get on at either 1:00 p.m. or 3:00 p.m., I would recommend 1:00 p.m. so you can see the fireworks,) you can watch the show, just without any sound. I still haven’t found out when exactly the show will be broadcast on the BBC, but I will let you know.