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.

The calendar now says 2011. Which means about 4 months left till performance season. Here’s a peek back at last years season. (OK some might be repeat pictures from other posts, but aren’t they worth seeing again?)

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.

On Labour Day we were in Burk’s Falls for their Fall Fair. UGHH…FALL…can you believe it. It really is starting. The weather has definitely dropped and the clouds have rolled in. Even the trees are starting to turn color. Which don’t get me wrong it’s gorgeous but were did summer go?!?!? I guess this summer has been nicer than last summer, less rain and sunnier days, but when you perform on most weekends the summer sure flies by. Tomorrow is the Parry Sound Fall Fly-In, the last big performance of the season. If the weather holds it should be a nice relaxing day. It always cold in the morning when we set-up, so I am trying to remember to take an extra sweatshirt.

It turns out that the performance at the King Place Retirement home was for the grand re-opening of the place. They have recently done some new construction enlarging their facilities. They had a few speeches from local politicians including the mayor of Midland, who cut the ribbon. Joan, the lady who runs King Place use to run a home here in Muskoka, that’s how she knows about us. In the 5 years that we have been working together she has always wanted the whole orchestra to perform for her events, but be it weather or space limitations it has never worked out. She was so excited and pleased to have all of us. The weather was absolutely perfect! They were nice enough to give us a Men’s change room, a Ladies change room and a lounge room, plus feed us lunch. And for those of you out there who want to know what we ate (you know who you are) we had a scrumptious meal of spinach salad with roasted pecans and strawberries, pasta salad, a garbanzo bean salad, vegetable wraps with hummus, cake and drinks. I have to say my favorite was the spinach salad. The most common request I get is for more pictures so here you go.