Watching David Letterman Live!

On our trip to NYC, hubby and I were just walking down the street minding our own business when a rep from CBS came up and offered us free tickets to a taping of the David Letterman show.  Of course we said yes!  It was quite an experience, and we really had a good time.  Thought I would share it with you......

You pick up your tickets between 2-3pm, and no, you don't just waltz up to the box office, the process takes close to an hour.  You are asked to be back in line (in numerical order based on the number on the back of your ticket) by 3:30, and the taping starts at 4:30.  So, from 3:30 to 4:15, you are all huddled in the lobby getting "warmed up".  You still don't know who the guest is going to be, they keep it a surprise.  The people ushering you through the process have lots of energy, and it's hard to believe that they do this every day! A few interesting things they said....

• Dave checks out the audience before the show - if he has some really great content, but not a great audience, he will save it for another show.  He gets a lot of motivation from the audience, so it's important to be very enthusiastic.
• Have a question prepared, he likes to interact with the audience and work it into the material for that show (and he did it, it was quite neat to watch).
• Dave comes out and meets the audience about 5 minutes before the show starts to interact with them a bit.

When you finally do get to sit down in your seats, the music is playing really loud and you are encouraged to clap along - after a while, your hands start to hurt.  Then the band comes out and plays some great songs, then a comedian comes out and tells some funny jokes, then out comes the big man himself, to interact with the audience for a spell.  The show we went to see aired on January 19th, and the guest was Martin Short and the musical guest was Darius Rucker - both very enjoyable!  The taping ended up taking just over an hour because they had to "re-shoot" Martin Short's song.  Now what struck me as odd, is that although the show is taped, and not live - they act as if it is live.  They actually take commercial breaks.... we sit there while the band plays us a tune, and they countdown as we go "live" again..... odd.  Anyone have any idea why they do that?

It was a very neat experience although we just "lucked" into our tickets, I understand that you can go online and request tickets - I would recommend going if you ever get the chance!  It certainly was the highlight of our whirlwind trip.  Again, proof that there are still happy surprises awaiting us all!