Last night was The Love Show, with Yours Truly taking over the hosting responsibilities for one vacationing Greg Sterlace.
I arrived at Home of the Future to find most of my guests already there: Annie, Michele, niece Katharine, nephew Jake, their dad/handler du jour, and no band yet. Within about twenty minutes the band, Bare Flames, arrived, with enough equipment to rock out in the ol' Aud fercrissakes. I had no idea that live drums are not allowed at HOTF and there was a tense show-down between Richard and Jim, the drummer. My husband, Bad Ronald, showed up to co-host and the two of us tossed several suggestions at the band. My favoured suggestion was mine, bien sur, that the band lip-sync along to an mp3 we could download from their MySpace site. They said No, in unison, all four of them. Bad Ronald and I suggested that they fumble about with their chords and such as the music played, kind of like a Spinal Tap moment. They again said No. Finally, they were interviewed. They were a tough interview, kind of all in repose, one-syllable answers. Not a lick of irony abounding. We went to one of their mp3's, played along with a video that Tim Leary made for them. Brilliant.
Back to interview and in the interim I had suggested to Bare Flames that they pep it up a bit and they did. Better second-part interview and then another tune.
More interview and they were d.o.n.e.
Onwards to Katharine and her clarinet doing Love Me Tender as Annie sang.
Then some more talk, with me and Bad Ronald interviewing the niece and nephew.
Then interview time with Michele and Annie.
Now I was really studying the clock, counting down to thirty minutes which, when you're in the midst of the segment, seems interminable.
Time for the group jam/dance I stated and all in the studio shuffled in. Jim the drummer hit some mad sounds on the electronic drumpad as Katharine did her thing and Scott made some guitar sounds, plugged into the wall monitor.
We all sang some Love-related tunes, and danced. It went on and on and on and on and on and on. I suggested we all watch the playback, mainly to see if in fact the show was as much a flaming fiasco as I believed it was. It was not. Happily.
Television production, who knew it was such a Perfect challenge, sort of like orchestrating a shot with a group of about one hundred people as you're sweating and fretting and all the while keeping it real and jubilant on the exterior.

Love of orchestras.