Oakland: The Sun-Drenched Wait at the Golden Gate
By Robb Cundick, with photos by Deb Gehris, Marene Foulger and Keith Finlayson.

As I write, we are traveling on the bus from San Francisco to San Jose. It is Thursday and we have been in the Bay area since late Sunday night, so I have some catching up to do. We will sing in San Jose’s HP Pavilion this evening and then return for one more night at the San Francisco Marriott, where we have enjoyed an unprecedented 5 nights at the same hotel (and, I might add, the only hotel that has had more than enough elevators to accommodate the Choir and Orchestra).

Travel to San Francisco

The travel day from Portland to San Francisco was the longest of the tour. We left Portland at 10:45 in the morning and didn’t arrive at the San Francisco Marriott until nearly midnight. Beyond a comment about endurance, there would not normally be much to be said about a bus ride, but it turns out there are a couple of things to tell. In the “amazing coincidences” department, Choir member Steven Hendricks told me a fun story:

Each year he buys a new pair of comfortable black shoes at the Big 5 Sports store. This year he bought them immediately before the tour. At the concert in Seattle he noticed that his new shoes were splitting along a seam. They were his only pair. Would they fall apart before he finished the tour? If so, what would he do?

On our way to San Francisco we made a rest stop in Central Point, Oregon. To avoid restroom jams, the buses stopped at different locations. Steve’s bus stopped in a strip mall parking lot, right in front of a Big 5 Sports store. “What are the chances?” he thought as he headed inside to see if he could exchange the shoes.

Steve approached a store employee who was talking on a cell phone. As he neared the man he heard him say, “Honey! Guess who just pulled up? The ‘Motabs!’” (“What are the chances?” the man must have thought). Steve knew immediately that he must be a member of the Church — who else would call us “Motabs”? Needless to say, his shoes were exchanged and he had a nice visit with a fellow member.

A Stop in Redding

In planning the tour, one dilemma facing Choir administrative manager Barry Anderson was what to do about dinner while we were on the road from Oregon to California. You can’t stop at a restaurant with more than 400 people. He could hire a caterer, but then, where do you seat that many people? Barry found a caterer in Redding, California, and then turned to the Church for help. He called President Kent Wisemen of the Redding California Stake to see if perhaps there was a park with a pavilion where we could eat. President Wiseman told him it gets awfully hot in Redding at this time of year and suggested we eat at the stake center.

So it was that about seven and a half hours into the trip we pulled into the parking lot of the Redding Stake Center. Smiling members of the stake choir greeted us. We enjoyed a meal catered by Lulu’s Café and chatted with our fellow Saints, who were thrilled to host us.

The most touching part was at the end when we sang to them. The partition to the chapel was open so Rick Elliott used the organ to accompany us in Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of “Come, Come Ye Saints.” Then, as a farewell, we sang “God Be with You Till We Meet Again.” This cemented a bond between us. There were many tear-filled eyes.

We’ll always remember Redding as a place of refreshment for both body and spirit. As I said to several of the members, their hospitality made the stake center an oasis for us on our long journey!

In the Bay Area

Monday was another completely free day. Our meals were to be on our own and once again we were in a great city with lots to see and do. The most novel activity of which I heard was a group that rented “Segway Human Transporters.” If you haven’t heard of them, they are two-wheeled scooters designed for use in pedestrian areas. A gyroscopic mechanism keeps them balanced. Some in the group were terrified at first, but once they discovered they weren’t going to fall and that operating them was easy, they quickly became experts and had a grand time.

I’m sure I could relate as many different stories about what we did as there are members of our group. Suffice it to say that we passed one another in Chinatown, at Fisherman’s Wharf or strolling throughout the city. We looked across restaurants to see fellow travelers who had made the same “discovery.” The San Francisco Opera, museums, movies …you name it, we did it! And I mustn’t leave out that there were many who made an outing to the Oakland Temple.

The Bay area concert was Tuesday night in Oakland Coliseum. There were just over 10,400 people in attendance. Once again we enjoyed a rousing welcome from a large, affectionate audience.

The Coliseum is right next door to the Oakland A’s baseball stadium. Lloyd Newell told the audience that this was the first time he had arrived at a Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert to find our fans having tailgate parties in the parking lot. But then he let on that he was joking when he said, “I hope the A’s win!” (The tailgating “Choir fans” were actually baseball fans partying before the A’s game.)

Though the crowd was large, most of the people were concentrated either on the floor or the upper balcony. This made the Coliseum a more challenging place to connect with our audience. But the performance went very well and we were pleased with the reception we received.

The Sun-drenched Wait

On Wednesday the Choir was scheduled for a filming session. Two years ago, while touring the Northeast, we were filmed and photographed in front of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. You may have seen the striking picture from that occasion on the cover of the book America’s Choir: A Commemorative Portrait of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge seemed to offer a “golden” opportunity for another such patriotic portrait of the Choir.

And this time there was to be an added bonus. As producer of the opening ceremony for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Don Mischer has become a great friend of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. One of his current projects is a short promotional film for the National Parks Service. This film will feature several well-known artists performing segments of “This Land is Your Land” in National Parks across the country. First will be cellist Yo-Yo Ma on an island twelve miles off the Atlantic Coast. And even before learning that we would be in San Francisco, Mr. Mischer’s plan for the ending was to have the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. So when he learned of our tour, the timing seemed providential.

The filming took place at Crissy Field, a former army airfield that is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. When our buses pulled up at 9:30 am, we saw our risers set up on a field of long grass. And behind the field was the majestic backdrop: rising out of San Francisco Bay, towering above us and spanning the mouth of the harbor was …a great big bank of fog! Not to worry. It is not unusual for the Golden Gate Bridge to be shrouded in fog. Looking in the opposite direction, we could see clear skies over San Francisco. Surely the fog would disperse as it was heated by the sun

We strolled around and killed time for a while before finally lining up and mounting the risers. “We’ll do close-up shots while we wait for the fog to lift,” we were told. For an hour we did takes of “This Land is Your Land” and “God Bless America,” which were to be used on a future broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word. The pre-recorded sound tracks were played on large speakers while we sang along. Then we did the same for the Choir’s segment of “This Land is Your Land” for the National Parks Service film. This was a different musical arrangement, and we sang to a recording made by a small group of studio singers, since the Choir’s soundtrack has not yet been recorded (we will do that some time after our return to Utah).

When we first arrived, the sun was only dimly visible in the fog overhead. But as the filming continued we began to feel its steady heat. Until then, most of us hadn’t thought about the possibility of sunburn. We had expected to be there for only a couple of hours, so almost no one had thought to put on sunscreen.

Shortly after noon we took what was supposed to be a short break while the cameras were repositioned for the panoramic shots with the bridge in the background. But the break stretched on as we waited, watched and hoped for the fog to lift. To pass the time, many walked along a path by the water, some venturing so far as a distant pier where they watched people fishing and catching crabs. There were visits with curious onlookers, and many could be seen leaving with a Choir CD in hand.

Finally, we were called to reassemble on the risers. Since there was little change in the fog we did some practice takes of each song. During the intervening pauses we kept hearing the same story: “People from the area tell us it is likely the fog will lift very soon. Hopefully it will only be another five or ten minutes.” I’m sure there were many who said inner prayers, and I wish I could say we were favored with a dramatic lifting of the fog. But on this day, for reasons known only to Him, the Lord’s blessing was confined to helping us be patient and cheerfully endure more than five hours of standing under an unrelenting sun. Upon finally giving up and calling it a day, Mr. Mischer assured us that thanks to the miracles of modern technology he will be able to use the footage to produce what he needs for the film.

There were many pink faces to be seen as we returned to the comfort of our air-conditioned buses. And by the time we reached the Marriott hotel, those same faces were starting to make the transition to bright red. It was mostly the men that were affected. The women’s makeup provided a measure of protection. But tonight’s San Jose audience will definitely be seeing red on the men’s side of the Choir. And it will be made all the more evident by the contrast between red faces and dark suits.

As one of the most memorable experiences of the tour, the “sun-drenched wait at the Golden Gate” will undoubtedly be talked about for years to come. Are we disappointed that the fog didn’t clear? Of course. And yet, in the grand scheme of things, the times when we are most in need of our Heavenly Father's blessings are in our concerts. And we rejoice that on our tour so far, the power of His Spirit has been present in abundance for every performance. Perhaps a picture at the Golden Gate would have been worth a thousand words. But in the case of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a song — accompanied by the influence of the Holy Spirit — is surely worth a thousand pictures!