- August began with my birthday, as I mentioned last time, and the following weekend I attended a family function, where local band Brothers of the Road performed. While I enjoy country music, I chose to duck out early and head to Rockin the Fields of Minnedosa with Fan Club President Karen, watch Nazareth perform and catch up with some other dear old friends from high school days gone by. Good to see Tim Holmes again.
- Two days later found me in Winnipeg, performing solo with my Martin for a handful of Fan Club members, including Karen, Dayna, Melanie, and another Dayna. Apparently, even stripped down in an intimate setting, the songs still work, although it's a very different vibe when up-tempo rock songs are performed more soulfully. It amazed me in so many ways that a roomful of attractive women from 3 different generations would be willing to listen to some hillbilly like yours truly croon, while also displaying their own creativity by way of their personally-altered versions of the black souvenir t-shirts emblazoned with my goofy face, like Karen's reversed t-shirt, Dayna's "tee-skirt", and Lisa's "tee-dress". I guess the coolest comment I heard all night was "Hooters Girl is my favourite song,... and my Mom's too. It's on my iPod." I'm also a cell phone screen saver now. And to think that up to that point I'd been regreting uploading to the internet the demo version of that tune.
- With my parents celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary at the Neepawa Legion Hall on the 12th, I chose to perform "25 Years" (which I'd written for them some 15 years earlier) solo, and a new tune, titled "Riverside", on 12-string with Andy and Bill adding vocals; it's akin to a Rascal Flatts feel, perhaps most comparable to "Seven Bridges Road" by the Eagles. At the end of the evening, we turned up the amps and performed our regular material, filming it from three separate angles simultaneously. A little different, with the four of us all performing in suits, still very but cool in its own way.
- Now, I've had to come to accept the fact that we do indeed have fans to the point where those in Winnipeg have a loosely-organized club. I've never really been able to accept any kind of flattery or compliment, it's certainly not the reason I write or perform. I mean, I've occasionally gone a year or more without performing live, for various reasons, and even when I've been playing, I've still been called a "rock and roll hermit" by at least one fan. But one particular young fan has done more recently to revitalize my spirit than any other ever has, and it's for that reason that we endeavored to locate a venue in Winnipeg at which to perform as a band, but with such short notice, it was nearly impossible.
- And so we agreed to perform live at a farewell barbeque party for Dayna Radawetz in her parents' backyard this past weekend. Dayna was leaving for Kelowna, B.C., on Tuesday afternoon, and her friends and family welcomed us as we apologetically parked Andrew's minivan in their driveway behind our intended arrival time, Trevor exhausted from working the midnight shift all week, Bill skipping work, and me suffering from some intestinal flu. With the only condition placed upon us that we were to observe the city's noise bylaws, we went through our set quickly, and then several covers (including some we hadn't prepared), and after playing about three-times longer than we'd intended, we settled in for some much appreciated refreshments and visiting, as Dayna's mom Lorraine presented us with some cash that everyone had contributed, which we accepted only to be donated to charity; as we may participate in the North 40's annual Band Jam for Cancer, we announced that we'd direct the funds in that direction. We already have another fundraising benefit performance scheduled at the Harvest Moon Festival in Clearwater, MB; I'll never turn down any kind of charitable organization unless absolutely necessary, and cancer's a personal cause.
- There's nothing like the feeling of witnessing teenage girls dancing and singing along with the lyrics to a song you've written. We're going to miss you, Dayna. Our thanks to the entire Radawetz family, who made us feel like old friends even though we'd just met.
"the Blue Devil"
