All SMOKED Out! (Day 5)

And on to the final episode of One Fry Short Productions presents ALL SMOKED OUT..

Friday morning I awoke after a restless sleep deep in anticipation of the days events. I had allowed myself a little more time than I wanted to before I finally got out of bed, but when I was I was off like a rocket. I was out the door by 10:45am with a laundry list of things to do before rehearsals that afternoon at 1pm.

My first stop was the giant conglomorate of all things necessary: The Almighty Wal-Mart(tm). On my list:

1. Water cooler capable of holding at least 24 bottles of water
2. Two 24 pack cases of Aquafina water bottles
3. Pack of AA Batteries for digital camera
4. Two dual packs of 8mm video cassette tape for camera
5. Two disposable cameras

So here I am, on a Friday morning in Wal-Mart pushing my cart around the store on step below Light Speed. Its amazing I didn’t run anybody over, but I don’t think I would have stopped if I did.

I somehow managed to get out of there in 15 minutes and was then off to pick up our Canadian artist Young Terror from Intercontinental at 11:25am. I honestly didn’t think I would make it, especially when I got turned around three times because of the massive amounts of construction that never ends on Houston freeways.

As the hours progressed on Friday I would soon discover a great number of amazing things was going to happen, because I was actually early to pick him up. I waited in the pickup area for about 10 minutes and he walked out, me holding up a “YOUNG TERROR” sign that looked like his logo. I’m sure he loved that.

We got to the Hyatt-Regency and checked in, and then headed over to ToC Bar for the rehearsals which were already happening. I walked in on the tail end of Wordsmith’s set, who had arrived that morning about 8am. We ran through a couple more performances and then closed up shop about 3:30pm.

Everyone returned to their hotel rooms and got ready for dinner, which we decided to return to the wonderful Cabo’s for. We hoofed it the 8-10 blocks or so and pointed out some of the Houston sights to the new arrivals. Unfortunately at Cabo’s there wasn’t anywhere we could all sit together, so we all split off into different tables. We had pretty much everyone there at the restaurant including Berg, Surreal, and DJ Kutz who showed up a little later.

After the wonderful dinner we all walked back to the hotel to get ready for the show. I had to leave earlier than everyone else because I had the first set of the night at 9pm. I took Young Terror and Daniel with Icy Records so they could set up a table to sell/promote Motion. Nobody was there when we arrived, of course, so I got started and just played around a little until people started showing up.

Around 10pm all the artists and their support had showed up and it was starting to pick up speed. By the time 11pm rolled around the show was ready to go with a moderate but quickly growing crowd.

Dirty D was up first, a Houston resident, Colombian native. He performed two songs and had a couple dancers on stage with him. It was his first performance and he did great at warming the crowd up. We put Young Terror up next and he performed two tracks himself, as well as going a capella at the end.

At that point we broke for 30 minutes while we waiting for more of the crowd to start coming in. It was starting to get really packed in there by 11:30, and we continued the show with Berg featuring DJ Kutz, followed by Surreal. Berg was AMAZING and the crowd really got into it.

Surreal came up and with her 5′2″ barely 100lbs self opened her mouth and became a 7′ tall Amazon. Everyone was shocked and the crowd went crazy. PKT followed next and performed three songs that kept everyone bouncing, and we brought Prime Status up next.

Prime performed three songs total, and brought on Hustle Man, Dotcom, and finally Da Golden Child on the last song “Life as a Thug,” where Golden then took over the show and exploded into his own set. He had the attention of the whole audience and the crowd was at its peak by this point.

Our first out-of-town artist from Los Angeles followed with Motion featuring Knotch, Ace, and Aries and performed a 30 minute jam tight set. Everyone was on top of their game this night and everything was working just as we had planned. We wrapped the night with a powerful performance with Wordsmith that had everyone’s hands in the air screaming “Countdown!”

We wrapped the show up at 1:30am, a perfect two hour concert that went off exactly as planned. Out of everything that could have possibly gone wrong that night, nothing did. Amazing is the only word to properly describe everything that went on, and that’s not even good enough.

I want to thank each and every person that was involved or had any part in ALL SMOKED OUT. It was one of the single best nights in my life and will go down as a landmark in my history. I hope everyone else had even half as much fun as I did, because I had a blast. We’re now looking forward to the next show, and the show after that.

Read the whole journey!
Part 1: All Worn Out
Part 2: All ToCed Out
Part 3: All Stoked Out
Part 4: All Worked Out