For the Sunday drive to Portsmouth, Scott and I had decided to sleep in and leave around 10am.  I couldn't sleep, thinking about Máiréad, so I got up early and walked around downtown again.  I took my camera this time and got some nice photos of the venue and the surroundings.  And I managed to catch another train.  I also discovered that the local high school class apparently had their graduation party at the convention center on Saturday night and had decided to dress the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh in somewhat different garb than usual!

Scott arrives at my hotel around 9:30 and we load up.  I enter downtown Portsmouth into my GPS and the ”autopilot” gets us out of town and onto the Interstate with no problems.  After listening to ANJ for awhile, Scott pulls out a copy of Olivia's CD and we listen to it twice.  There's some good stuff on there; if you don't have it yet you should get it.  He lets me keep that copy as a gift for providing transportation.  Thanks, Scott!

We arrive before 1:00, check into the hotel and then decide to head to the venue to get a good parking spot.  Portsmouth is not very big and Olde Towne Portsmouth is only a few blocks from the venue.  Tom, who we are meeting later, had recommended Paddy O’Brian’s Irish Pub for dinner so we decide to locate it early for future reference.  First, though, we head to the waterfront to look at some of the ships and watch pleasure boats go by.  The ferry from Hampton Roads arrives while we are there and oddly, to me anyway, it is operated by the local transit authority just like it was a bus or a train.  Commuters apparently use it regularly to cross the bay.

The information that Tom gave us indicated that Paddy O'Brian's was on High Street.  We walk almost the whole length of the street without finding it and finally get directions to it from another restaurant.  On the way, we pass a few old churches, including one that dates to 1761, so I take a few pictures.

Since we aren't expecting Tom until around 5:30, we head back over to the venue.  I need to pick up my last minute purchase of a front row center ticket at Will Call and I want to take some pictures of the pavilion.  It is a very interesting design being sort of a tent suspended over the seating area.  From an engineering perspective, the cables holding the edges down are as strong or stronger than the ones holding the center up!  It is difficult to take a good picture from the ground but we walk around the perimeter to see what we can see.  As we get to a gate where we see inside, we suddenly hear the familiar strains of CW music.  Sound check!  We look for a better vantage point but find none, so we just find a shady spot and enjoy a 6-song concert preview.  They do one group song and each girl does a solo.  It's interesting to hear snippets of conversations with the crew.  And the girls add a few extras to the songs sometimes.  It's a great way to kill some time while waiting for Tom to get off work (on a Sunday?)

After the sound check we head back over to the restaurant and get a table.  Before too long Tom arrives and we have an excellent dinner.  There's plenty of time after dinner so we take a leisurely stroll over to the venue and wait for the gates to open.  Despite the high-tech design of the pavilion, the entry process is decidedly low-tech.  This was the first show in a long time where they tore the ticket stub off rather than just scanning the barcode.  It was a little funny because the girl at the Will Call window told me there might be problem with the barcode on my ticket.  Needless to say, there was no problem!

The seating chart for the venue is one of those vague ones and I wasn't 100% sure that my row A seat was front row.  After confirming that there was no orchestra pit, I was relieved to find that my seat was indeed front row center.  My backup row H ticket that I had given to Scott turned out to be third row rather than eighth row, but off to the right of the stage.  Tom was back in the second tier Gold Circle section so none of us was close to one another.  The place was very crowded so, unfortunately, there was no chance for either a PSU or an ISU.

The stage is smaller than a typical theater and I don't believe it has all of the normal apparatus, so there were some adaptations made in the set.  The white drapes that normally frame the stage were missing.  I don't know if it was because there was nothing to suspend them from or if they were worried about the wind.  There was a noticeable sea breeze which sometimes got a little gusty.  The show started well before sunset so the projection screen and lighting didn't have their full effect until the second act.  For an open-air pavilion the sound was excellent, at least up front.  As I chatted with my seat mates, all of whom were CW concert “virgins,” they expressed concern about it being too loud.  As always, I assured them the the sound would be perfect.

As the show started and that vision in white appeared, I quickly noticed that she now had braces on both legs.  To the untrained eye she appeared to be performing normally, but there was no leaping and less running.  Spinning was apparently not a problem, though, because she did what has now become her normal 9 spins during Coast of Galicia.  I did notice her being assisted offstage during the first act but not during the second.  The show was excellent, although my enthusiasm was tempered by Máiréad's injuries.

Having the only Fiddler Crossing sign in the front row does have its advantages.  Máiréad spotted me right away and kept flashing those amazing smiles my direction.  She knows that my favorite song, by far, is Last Rose Fantasia and I've never seen her look at the audience during that song before.  But this time she looked right at me and gave me a huge smile like she was playing it just for me.  Talk about needing Odo's bucket, I could have used Odo's 55-gallon drum!

The other girls recognized me, as well.  Chloë gave me a big smile during Nella Fantasia, which she knows is my favorite song of hers.  I totally immersed myself in the show and tried not to think about Máiréad's injury.  I think I started most of the standing ovations, in the front row anyway, and all too soon the show was over.

Ever the “salesman,” Scott told me after the show that he had given out Fiddler Crossing signs and forum buttons in exchange for donations to Máiréad's charity.  We missed Tom on the way out and headed back to the hotel.  Scott used my laptop until the wee hours typing his review and working out arrangements to have flowers delivered to Máiréad at Wolf Trap.  I went to sleep feeling better about her health but still a little worried.

The original review is here.