It was still a nice day

So, the Tommy Womack show had a slight weather glitch... but it was still a nice day. It was beautiful from the time I got up until right about the time Tommy started playing. Then we had a bit of a thunderstorm. It all worked out though.

Tommy arrived around 3 pm. He asked for a place to take a nap, so I showed him a couch in the basement and a place he could smoke and he was set. Though I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to wake him up when it was time for his sound check. He and Andrew were nice sound-checkers though - as neither one were too particular.

People started rolling in around 5:30 or so, and at its peak I would say we had maybe 85. I was a little disappointed there weren't more people from the area there just to see Tommy, but they were predicting thunderstorms all day, and it looked like it stormed in Fort Wayne before it did for us. I think that kept a lot of people away.

Anyway, there was plenty of food. We cooked hot dogs and hamburgers and had everybody from church bring a dish. It went well. Andrew Camp took the stage around 6:30. He did a nice set. I like his style, and he's got a really neat sound (and he didn't call my names boy the whole night!).

We took a short, short break... because the skies were getting dark, and it was starting to lightning. Some people began leaving at this time. Then Tommy played. He only did a few songs and it started sprinkling. The skies were looking nastier by the minute, so I made an executive decision and moved everybody inside into the sanctuary. I thought this would be easiest since he could just plug in and play from my set-up and we wouldn't need to do any sound makovers. About five minutes after we moved inside it just cut loose. It was raining sideways and blowing to beat the band. Someone came and told me (twice) that the sirens were going off. I didn't think it was worth moving into the basement so we just stayed and Tommy played right through everything - even when the power went off for about 20 seconds. And, actually, it sounded a lot better inside through our main sound system (I thought).

All in all... I kind of amazed myself that I never freaked out the whole night. I was impressed that Tommy was able to remove all the questionable language from his lyrics on the fly. And in one of the few covers he did - Sam Stone - he changed it from "Jesus died for nothing" to "Jesus died for somethin, I suppose." It was a really nice Father's Day for me.

Oh, and to top off the night, Shelly saved a couple of bicyclers from the storm and brought them to the show, and they spent the night in the church building. I think they were glad.

Here are a few of the 75 pics Jane took:

Andrew Camp wowing us on the six-string.

Crowd shot: Drew flashing peace; Carrie yawning; Isaac & Laura contemplating; me and Joan in the background. The lady in the lavender sweater is 91 years old! She was stomping her feet to the beat all night. :)

Kids having fun.

Jane caught me by surprise.

Meeting of the minds: me, Tommy & Andrew.

Tommy Womack taking over my pulpit.

Me presenting Tommy with the Father's Day card everyone in our church signed Sunday morning.