The Benefit Was A Huge Success

Last night's benefit concert for the friend of mine who passed away in December, was a huge success. We had a great crowd that was a mixture of friends, family, regulars from that venue, and diehard fans of the performer -who, by the way, ROCKED the house!

Some highlights for me (besides the performance itself):

• I was sitting with his wife, and she cried at one point during a song that he dedicated to our friend. She told me she started remembering all the times she'd seen her and all the years they'd known her. I know the tears were for my friend, but anyone who can still be moved to tears by their husband's performance after over 20 years of marriage... What can I say... I'm in love with this couple!
  
  
• Friends, friends, friends... always the highlight for me. People.
  
  
• Watching fans squeal every time he played the first chord of a song, because they instantly knew which song those chords belonged to. -Also watching them play air guitar or keyboard when they thought no one was looking. Or when they knew people were looking but didn't care :)
  
  
• I was hit on repeatedly that night! Lol! So much so that a friend of mine started telling people he was my husband! I think the reason I was getting hit on was because I sold the tickets for the autographed guitar raffle, and somewhere in these guys' minds I think they associated me with the wad of cash I was carrying around. So subconsciously, they either associated me with being super rich, or being a hooker. Or maybe a super rich hooker. (FWIW, I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt with a small rounded neck, and a long jacket. It's not like I was wearing a mini skirt with a low cut blouse and thinking [insert Valley Girl voice here] "What? I don't get it?" ;) )
  
  
• A fan came over to me after the raffle and showed me that of the two tickets he'd purchased, he'd been given both copies of the same ticket.
  
  Each ticket has a duplicate. One goes in the pot and the purchaser keeps the duplicate ticket with the matching number. If his number gets picked from the pot, he shows that he's holding its matching ticket in order to claim the prize. Except that this guy had been given BOTH copies of the same ticket, and both copies of his second ticket had gone into the pot, but he had no copy of those himself to be able to claim the prize if he'd won. Though we would have figured it out. (His 2nd ticket would have been the next sequential number either immediately before or after the ticket he had. If one of those two numbers had been picked and no one had claimed it, we would have known it was his, and could have verified it by finding its pair in the pot.)
  
  He thought the mistake was funny and was a great sport about it. I apologized profusely. However, on my way home I remembered that he was one of the first people to buy a raffle ticket, and at that time I was only handling the money for the raffle. Someone else was distributing the tickets for the first 20 minutes! So I don't feel bad now! (It's VERY unlike me to make a mistake like that!) Regardless, about 5 minutes after he pointed out the error (while I was still feeling incredibly guilty, despite the fact that he thought it was funny, and the winning ticket wasn't anywhere near his number!) I tracked him down in the crowd and asked him to give me his tickets. I had them autographed for him and returned them to him ten minutes later. He should get good mileage out of his story and signed tickets for years.

I spent most of today tying up post concert stuff (going online to thank his fans for their generous support last night, updating the website, sending out a mailing...) I still have another couple of days' work to do for this and then things should be calmer on this front until the next event. -And there will be more. My friend and her husband were well known in the Rock industry, and so many bands have approached her husband, wanting to donate their time and talent to raise money for her fund, that an outdoor concert with multiple headliners is being planned for August.

My friend would have been so moved by this outpouring of support and by everyone coming together just for her. She would have been overwhelmed (and uncomfortable) with all the attention, but she also would have been deeply touched. I wish she were here to see it all. Her husband believes she is still around and that her spirit sees everything that's been going on. He's convinced of it. I hope he's right.