Vienna Jammers in Atlantic City

Vienna Jammers in Atlantic City

Atlantic City here we come!  Anna's first trip to Atlantic City was a memorable one as she got to perform with the Vienna Jammers at the Atlantic City convention center for a national music teacher conference.  This was the Jammers' first performance outside of the greater Vienna area and they were a big hit.

Taking over 60 kids on a four-hour bus ride along with LOTS of music equipment is no easy feat.  There is a small army of parents that coordinate this, which involves an enterprise rental truck (to load steal drums) and packing numerous marimbas, two drum sets, speakers, cabling, sound system, etc.....under the two buses.  Getting to the conference was one thing, but the director, Mr. Reynolds, added a fun side trip to Philadelphia on the way home for cheesesteak and a ghost tour of Philly historic sites.  It was a full day.

The buses departed at 7 AM on Saturday morning.  Theresa decided to join in the fun (its not every day you get to take a 4 hour bus ride with 5-10th graders).  As soon as the bus pulled out of the parking lot, a couple of boys in the back of the bus began demanding the wifi password for the bus ("I'm going to DIE if I don't have wifi).  The boy sitting across the aisle from Theresa proceeded to eat a corn dog for breakfast.  The bus bathroom did not have hand sanitizer, which meant Theresa's main job was distributed her hand sanitizer to those exiting the bathroom (an aroma of "pacific breeze" wafted through the back of the bus).  Many of the kids consumed at least 75% of their snacks within the first 30 minutes of the trip (Anna was in this group).  The mom coordinator for the trip made some healthy snack bags for the kids, which included popcorn, water, and taffy.  Anna managed to get all of the taffy from the kids that had braces and that was her breakfast.  Fortunately Mr. Reynolds got the DVD player going so the kids could watch movies on the way up.

Anna & Mallory on the ghost tour

After a 4 hour trip, the Jammers arrived at the convention center.  All of the kids helped unload and set up the equipment in the great hall, which is where they were performing.  Fortunately the weather was nice, which meant the kids could have lunch outside and run around while waiting for the performance.  Pizza was delivered (it was really good Italian pizza) and the kids enjoyed lunch for all of 2 minutes before the seagulls began to move in.  The next activity was flipping water bottles.  Apparently the objective is to loosen the top on your water bottle and give it a toss in an effort to get it to land right side up.  Again, 60 kids doing this is, well......fraught with peril.  Once again, Mr. Reynolds came to the rescue and lined up all of the kids for a water bottle flipping contest with the lids on.  This easily took 20 minutes (the man is brilliant) and the kids had a good time.

Performance time was 2:15.  From the great hall, you could look up and see four levels of balconies above you.  By the time the group finished the first song, you could see people filling all four balconies to listen along with the crowd gathered in the front.  It was really quite awesome to see and hear their cheers for the kids.  The got a fantastic reception and lots of positive feedback from the teachers afterwards.  Another note about a music teacher convention - groups may burst into song at any time.  It may be the closest thing to living in a musical.  After the performance, a group of teachers sort of did a flash mob to sing a beautiful piece.  Following the performance, the kids quickly loaded up the equipment and headed to Philadelphia for some cheesesteak and a ghost tour.

The trip to Philadelphia to Tony & Luke's cheese steak took a bit longer than anticipated (why, we don't know).  Since the group ordered ahead, sandwiches were waiting for everyone.  The most popular part of the meal was not the sandwiches but rather the soda machine and its unlimited refills.  You should definitely take 60 kids to a place with unlimited soda right before a ghost tour and a 3 hour bus ride.  After a quick 30 minute sandwich stop, the group headed to Philly for the ghost tour.  By this time, it was 8 PM and there were some really tired kids....and grownups.  The tour was fine, although the tour guide was not quite prepared for her younger audience.  She used a lot of big words, that the kids were not hesitant to ask her to define (what does dismal mean).  Since a large part of her tour involved descriptions of how people died, there were a lot of detailed questions about diseases of the day (dysentery, yellow fever, tuberculosis, etc...).  At one point towards the end, she just started to say someone died "because they got sick" rather than deal with the 20 questions from the kids. The kids had fun, but all were happy to board the bus to return home.

 Thanks to the soda, there were  lots of trips to the bathroom (Theresa gave out a lot of hand sanitizer).  Once again, Mr. Reynolds' excellent judgement was on display as he prepared a movie to "start soon" as the buses left Philly only to never quite get around to pushing the play button.  The end result:  a dark bus with 75% of the riders asleep. The buses arrived back in Vienna at 12:30 AM.

It was a great experience for all of the kids.  A big thanks to Mr. Reynolds for taking on such an enormous trip and ensuring the kids had an awesome time!  Fortunately the next gig is local....December 3 at Jammin Java in Vienna.  Come check out the Vienna Jammers!  Check out the Atlantic City performance.