Features
Toyota Center’s Rainy Sleepover
Fans of the Houston Rockets may have enjoyed a Memorial Day victory over the Golden State Warriors to win Game Four of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals, but torrential rains made 350 fans stay at the Toyota Center until as late as 5:30 a.m. the following morning.
“The road crew showed up in the morning asking, ‘Where are all the stagehands?’ They had no idea we were flooding. We had to brief them on the situation in our city. “We had several talks with [Diamond] leading into the show, letting him know attendance might be affected. To our surprise, it actually wasn’t. We had a pretty full house. People were saying they bought tickets in the fall, or they were Christmas presents. It was a big deal so they braved it but, by the evening, the roads had cleared for the most part.”
Diamond made a mention of the conditions during his performance. His last visit to the arena was a few days before Hurricane Ike hit the area in 2008 and he joked about how he tends to bring bad weather to the area. In 2008, after visiting the ravaged areas surrounding the venue, Diamond donated all of his merch sales to help rebuild nearby Oak Island.