First Think, THEN Ink.

There are still a few brick and mortar bookshops in existence and one chain is Barnes & Noble. We actually have several of them in various parts of the city and one of the Tony Winning stars of the phenomenon known simply as Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. appeared at the 86th Street and Lexington B&N in support of his new, self-titled album of jazz covers.

Odom won his Tony for his role as the narrator of Hamilton, Aaron Burr. He left the show this past Saturday, and is moving on to a whole lot of other tremendous stuff, including a series of sold out late night performances at the McKittrick Hotel the rest of the month as just the beginning of what promises to be a skyrocketing career.

I swung by to see his appearance, to hear him do a couple of songs from the album and be a part of the meet and greet.

First though, a word about the organization of the event.

The requirements of attending the performance meant that you needed to purchase one of Leslie's CDs at the store, which entitled you to a wristband which would admit you to the area for the performance and CD signing.

Apparently they created several different colors of wristband and, depending on when you purchased your CD, you had priority about where in the line you would be. As I was in the first group when the store opened at 9am, I was in the green group, or the first group. Others that followed were pink, silver and, likely, angry they didn't get in.

However, when the time for the event drew near, there was a completely haphazard line up where anyone with any wristband stood and waited in one massive line. It wasn't until after this line had formed and established itself that anyone explained about the "pecking order" of wristband colors and that the green group would be entering before any of the others, no matter where in this mash up line they were.

It was a logistical mess as people pushed and jockeyed for position, even within their own color groups. A lot of people were left out in the book stacks as the show went on. I have to think that somehow, this could have been handled better.

( Pictures Below )