well, the fire show at reed was fun, but it very definitely was NOT the show that we rehearsed… 😐

apparently chris massively overestimated the influence excercised by the people who were organising this whole shindig (it was definitely complicated by the modern version of HIF), combined with the fact that almost everything that we were going to do is either prohibited unless you have a permit from the fire marshall, or outright illegal… thus, no pyro, no dust effects (fire cyclone, playing with fire), and no gas cannons… and, it turns out that even big bois with poise is only marginally legal, because apparently portland has a law that has been in effect since 2001 (which was well before we performed there, without any problems at all, a few years ago) which states that the legal limit is 2 fire performers on stage at the same time…

but the majority of the audience didn’t know what we were going to be performing anyway, so we pressed on in spite of the fact that we didn’t get our pyro permit.

and macque has a professional relationship with the very laid-back, closet pyromaniac, fire marshall, who “inspected” our gear — in reality, he actually said we were supposed to inspect the gear — and basically said that he would be in the audience, watching, which macque said was “inspector speak” for “i’m not going to be here, so don’t fuck up.”

it started out with an impressive 15-minute fireworks display shot by the innocuously-named western display (which had a permit for pyro) that included at least two shots which resulted in a lot of yelling and scurrying around by various “professional” fire-safety guys… seriously, we didn’t have as many, or as spectacular mistakes as they did. and then we did 3 comets, one with steel wool (which burned out in a minute or so) and two sage/cedar comets that burned for 10 minutes — which was a lot longer than we expected. then there was an “interpretive dance” with sparklers, by Remedios Rapoport, who is someone i know, vaguely, through the chautauqua. we finished off with a full performance of big bois with poise — the one we did for AGT was only 90 seconds, this one had four verses and full costumes (i.e. flaming boobs), and a MUCH more positive reaction from the audience.

so, it was fun, and it definitely put me in a different state of mind than i would have been in if i had not gone.