We are in Dunchurch doing a performance/workshop in honour of the Queens Diamond Jubilee. 60 years on the throne! Can you believe it?!? It’s not necessarily a job I would want, but I happen to like what I get to do. There is probably 150 people here and as soon as this set is done we are going to do a workshop to teach the adventurous courageous few a song. Don’t you wish you were here to try it?

If your not here you should be. We are playing for the Art in the Park series at the town docks in Huntsville. Last year it was pouring rain and the event got cancelled. This year the weather is perfect. See for yourself.

Technology has not been my friend of late. First it was the Internet going out, then not being able to get the blog to work. But as you can tell all is fixed.

We had a super busy weekend. A minor/major hiccup caused us to go down to Gravenhurst on Friday to set-up the tent a day before. Good thing they could get the street closed overnight! It threw everybody for a loop since we found out Thursday evening. (All that meticulous planning out the window!) But as expected the guys were ROCKSTARS! They pulled off the extra work without a grumble and it paid off. The next day was AWESOME! The response from everyone in Gravenhurst was amazing; it varied from dumbfounded looks to enthusiastic cheering and dancing. I have a feeling that 95% of the crowd had never seen us before.

PS. The clouds look pretty ominous in the one picture, but it was actually a really nice day.

Ok, so the title kind of says it all. The performance at the Kearney Regatta is cancelled. It really has been a weird summer without Belleville, and now no Dwight or Kearney. This is the kind of response I have gotten from some of you guys about the Dwight Firefest being cancelled.

“Holy Cow! Big Whoop about the fireworks – don’t they realize you are the main attraction?”

So I take it you guys think they should have us perform and forget the fireworks, huh?

This past Saturday we were in Fergus, ON, for their 175th Annual Fall Fair. 175 years! That’s a long time. The weather was pretty good. The skies were clear and the sun was out, but it definitely had the crisp feel of a fall day. The whole event was pretty interesting. They had the Golden Helmets there, unfortunately we missed them. They had already finished their demonstration by the time we arrived to set-up. For those of you who don’t know who the Golden Helmets are they the OPP’s precision motorcycle team. Think the Snow Birds or the Blue Angels on motorcycles. OK, maybe not as cool as fighter jets but they are still pretty impressive. They also had an OPP helicopter and the Lumberjack Company was doing a demo competition. Hats of to the guys who hustle up those poles while carrying chain saws. The big event was in the evening, a truck and tractor pull. Pretty incongruous steel pan music and tractor pulls, but music is for everyone, right? I have to give credit to the audience they really enjoyed us and we had a good time. Plus the event was pretty easy work wise. They already had a tent and a stage set-up and we could pull our truck right up to the stage, so unloading was a breeze.

Well this past Saturday was our last full performance of the summer. While I am sad to see it go I am also happy that we will get back to learning new songs and hopefully doing some school workshops and community clinics. That’s the great thing about it just when you are ready for a change of pace, voila! The performance went well. It was at the Parry Sound Airport’s 8th Annual Fall Fly-In. It’s kind of fitting, we started the year at the Parry Sound Dragon Boat Festival and we ended it back in Parry Sound. Little history fact for you, our very first public performance was in Parry Sound way back in 2001. There was this cray little plan that runs on two 15 hp motors. Can you believe it? They also had a Fokker triplane (maybe better described by saying, The Red Baron’s plane) and a Sopwith biplane. Also some guy flew in with a pretty cool stunt biplane. I heard that they had 3,000 people through out the day. The runway was super busy. I sure am glad I wasn’t the guy on the ground directing all the air traffic.

We are just eating dinner as we wait to start our performance for the Hospice Muskoka “Summer Sizzler” Charity Benefit at the J.W. Marriot Rosseau Resort & Spa. Boy, that’s a mouthful! This is the second year we have participated and it’s great. It’s a beautiful setting here at The Rosseau. We are set up on the Lakeview Lawn. The name says it all. It is right behind the main building up on a bluff that overlooks Lake Rosseau. The weather is perfect! It’s nice and warm but not to humid. Maybe next time I’m here it will be as a guest so I can just kick back and chill.

I’m sitting here at my computer more than a little disappointed. Tonight’s concert for the Festival of the Arts in Huntsville has been canceled. Normally we would already be setting up, but not this evening. Something about a tornado watch. It seems hard to believe as I am looking out my window and the weather is actually starting to clear but that too is part of the forecast, the calm before the storm, I guess. It makes since. We really can’t risk being caught out in the kind of storm that is predicted, besides who would come? A lot of us really like this performance it is such a nice setting. The park at the town docks makes for a perfect little open air amphitheater and the audience is just great. Oh well, it is not to be this year. Here are a few pictures from last year.

Last weekend we had one of the best weekends ever! The Dwight & Kearney performances are perennial favorites for us but this year beat all the other years we have done. What’s not to love about perfect weather, a long weekend, awesome music and fireworks?!?! This year we tried something a little bit different. We started our performance at the normal times, around 6 PM. (There is something really nice about not having to wake up at 4 AM in order to set-up for a performance, maybe someday we will have roadies.) We did the normal sets and then when it was nice and dark we decided we were a little tired of the regular lights we use and BOOM! off went the lights and on with the black lights. That’s right, if you weren’t there you really missed out! We had new shirts that have fluorescent design on them and everything white was GLOWING! It was AWESOME! Talk about a pumped up crowd and when the audience is like that I can’t explain what it feels like to be one of the people giving that to them. Let’s just say if you think you are having fun watching/listening/dancing to our music you have no idea. We have 10 times more fun doing it!

In Dwight there are usually lots of people by the last set and when you look out over the water there are tons of lights from boats. I have had people tell me that the music sounds amazing when you are out on the water because of the way the sound carries. In Kearney I was playing along having a good time and I could see that we had quite a few people inside and around the tent but I had no idea how many people were actually there until afterwards when I was watching the fireworks and they lit up the sky. You could see that there were hundreds of people sitting and standing on the side of the hill just below where we were performing. I was blown away by how many people showed up.

So this past Saturday was the only sunny clear skies day in something like a week and a half. As we were driving to the venue in the morning you could tell it would be nice and on the drive back it became overcast. It was some sort of gift, those clear skies that broke the gloom for a moment. This was Parry Sound’s 7th Annual Fall Fly-In and every year I notice more people. This year there seemed to be a lot of young families with little kids. It was really cute at one point this little boy, he must have been about 4, came and started dancing right in front of the front line. It just reminded me that everyone is at least born with rhythm.

Well it was our last big performance for the year so we are basically done, except for the CIBC Run for the Cure on Oct. 3 which is a small group. A lot of the performers who come for the summer season have already left or are leaving this week. It’s kind of like a mass exodus, but you won’t really be able to tell till rehearsals start again. Rehearsals have been canceled for a while. I’m not sure how long till they start up again (probably a week or 2) but we are having a break, a chance for us to recover a bit from everything. When we get back to the building the group will feel a lot smaller. Anyways here are some pictures’ from Saturday.