THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH – PERFORMANCE IN HAUGESUND:
Started out as a normal day and then at 9 am, all that changed. David called and Howard needed to see a doctor. He had been “self-medicating” a cyst for days and evidently it had become so painful that he needed to have something done. That started a round of call to everyone I knew in Bergen – which thankfully was a lot of people – as well as the promoters. Ana from Stageway was kind enough to get Howard an appointment with his doctor and also come and pick Howard up. They departed the hotel about 20 minutes before we left and David went with him. Since the doctor’s office was en route to Haugesund, we stopped there to see if he had any news but only learned that the doctor wasn’t able to help him and sent him to the hospital for treatment.
We arrived Haugesund and had a few minutes before leaving for sound check. I had been staying in touch with David and hoping for good news. Ana had arranged for his nephew to drive David the 3 hours to Haugesund if the doctor hadn’t seen Howard by 2:00 pm. Unfortunately, a doctor had not come by so David had to leave him. However, David Genuis graciously came over to stay with Howard.
When David arrived at the hotel, we gave Ana’s nephew Howard’s suitcase to take back to the hospital for him. About 5 minutes after David went on stage, I got a call from David Genius that Howard had been taken in for the surgery. I wasn’t aware that they were going to have to totally put him under. It was over two hours before we heard that everything was fine and they had taken him to a room. David Genius stayed with him a while and then had to go home because he is going out of town tomorrow.
The audience seemed to enjoy the show last night with only David singing. He had them singing along with him on several of their hits. It was an unavoidable situation but fortunately, the show did go on!
I stayed up working until 2 am and was falling asleep at the computer, so I did not get the Road Report typed up for today. Will add it to tomorrow’s.