Nicoya: Scene of the craziest concert ever

Hello blog readers! I know this is incredibly belated, but I thought you would enjoy a brief summary of the most chaotic, stress-filled concert I have ever been involved in. It all took place in Nicoya ...

So RCS got into Nicoya a few days ago (the days blur in my mind, maybe less than a week ago?) and the first thing that we noticed was that it was HOT. As in, over 95 degrees plus the most intense humidity I've ever experienced. Very different from "cool" San Jose. We looked around the city and quickly discovered that it's not quite as welcoming as San Jose (or at least, the posh, wealthy part of San Jose that we quickly became used to). However, we were enjoying ourselve and the super cheap internet ($1/hour! Amazing!) so we didn't really mind ... until call for the concert.

The concert was scheduled for 7pm, so we had call at 6 and rehearsed for about 20 minutes before we let people get water and try and catch some moving air somewhere to relieve us from the heat. However, Stella, Jenny, Erin, Katie and I (Kavita) didn't have a chance to enjoy the break, because a string if unfortunate incidents happened that left us wondering what on earth the deal was in Nicoya.

It started out with Natalia (our contact person for the concert) telling Erin 30 minutes before the concert that the Chinese Association of Costa Rica (who was hosting us and helping publicize for this benefit concert) was going to give Erin a gift, and she had to make a speech to the entire audience of several hundred thanking them. One major problem: Erin speaks not a word of Spanish. So she, Stella, and Katie started working with our tour moms to try and come up with an appropriate speech.

Meanwhile, I had to deal with an interesting audience member who had been video taping us during rehearsal. Due to copyright laws, he couldn't videotape us during the concert in case he sold the tapes illegally, so I and Cheryl (Bianca's fabulous mother) and to "convice" him that he didn't want to video tape us. This was harder than we thought it would be, since he offered multiple excuses as to why it should be ok, with each excuse changing depending on who he was talking to. Eventually (during the first piece of the concert, when I realized he was still taping and I had to leave and talk to him) Bianca's mother told him very firmly that he couldn't tape, made him turn off the camera, and unplugged the camera, throwing the plug to the floor. She's amazing.

While dealing with this before the concert started, a totally unknown man came up to myself and Katie and started asking us about the prominence of Jesus in our repertoire. I had to explain to him that while we sing lots of sacred music, we also have secular music in our program. I thus attempted to describe several pieces in the following manner:

Wayfaring Stranger: This is about a man who's looking for his family and his home and he just really wants to be back with the people he loves. Note: this is actually a somewhat religious piece.
Utopia: This is about trying to be happy and looking for joy in life. Also a religious piece.
Amazing Grace: This is an American song about a man who's thanking someone who helped him through a really rough time. Also religious. I'm sensing a pattern here.
Mata del Anima Sola: This is about a tree. At least we didn't need to hide the religious elements here - I just sounded somewhat crazy.

And then the concert started, while I was worrying about video taping man and religious man. Luckily, Cheryl and I were able to convince the video taper to change his mind at the start of the concert, and I only had to leave the concert two other times: when the priest of the church decided to set up a microphone that worked on an altar that was in the middle of our rows, while he was talking with Natalia, WHILE THE MICROPHONE WAS ON, and when the doors to the sacristy (where all of our belongings were) blew open and Katie turned to me and mouthed "Go. Deal with it" in the middle of the piece.

We also had bats circling our heads in the church at the end of the concert. Some theories as to why they didn't leave: our voices were bouncing off all the walls and confusing them, or they were hearing the overtones that were bouncing off the walls which were also confusing them. Either way, they kept us company for a large chunk of the concert.

However, at the end of the concert, several people came up and told us we sounded like angels, we sold tons of CDs, and a group of adolescent boys approached Krystal to get a picture with her (we've discovered she looks like a local telenovella star here, so everyone is fascinated by her). Though the audience didn't clap at all during the concert, they were all so incredibly generous with their compliments that all the craziness was worth it.

Kavita