Leave Her, Johnny Leave Her

Kristi at the home of John and Angela Montague - "Put me in coach"

"A-rounding third and heading for home, a moment in the sun.  It’s gone, and you can tell that one goodbye". – John Fogerty,Centerfield

Not gone yet but feeling mighty good about the game, we are.  Just four more days and three more gigs and we’ll be outtahere.   It seems in each case our gigs put us in a position to cherish more connections we’ve made in past years.  Fiona Lander and Paul Mason did a brilliant job setting us up to perform at Baafest Sunday, complete with wristbands reading “VIP”.   Indeed our treatment went along with the initials.  A friendly volunteer helped tote our instruments to the stage, and we got the requisite sound-check.  The audience seemed a perfect match for our selection of songs, with plenty of responsive faces and applause, plus an encore.  The emcee, Ian, told the audience that Steve's song, "Angels of the Road", made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  What more could we ask for?  CD sales?  Oh yeah, that went very well too.  As well we ran into another friend, Richard Ridley, who was performing there.  We tenaciously fondled our wristbands throughout the day, savoring the notion of our very importance for that wonderful hour.  In fact the reconnections on this trip have all reaffirmed what I cherish most about our travels.  At Stortfolk, Monte’s Acoustic Club, Lincoln Folk Club, and Sutton Cheney we’ve made new contacts as well as renewed old ones.  I get a particular charge out of seeing a face, be it familiar or unfamiliar, singing along on Steve’s song, “Wish You Were Here”.  

I remember in 1998 when I was writing a column called "Shop Talk" for the Victory Review, I interviewed Mike Freeman who tours U.K. folk clubs and festivals with his wife Tanya Opland.  One question I posed was, what were the the highlights of the experiences? His reply was a bit puzzling to me, as Steve and I hadn't done this yet at the time. We had only toured Alaska, Canada, and Washington State in a different market.  Mike said his favorite times were sitting in parlors of the homes of the hosts in the folk clubs after the show. He loved just sharing talk around libations.  I get this now.  Our years of doing this simple thing, talking with hosts and friends here, that involves hearing their takes on music, family, community, politics, et al, adds up to being vital to our accumulated treasure of social life that has it's own magic as we move along these roads again and again.

I asked Kristi to start this one so she did.  I would like to point out that everyone at the festival, volunteers, performers had a VIP wristband.  I think that is Kristi's special sense of humor.  Very funny Kristi.  That said I agree with her that the audience was wonderful.  After our radio Norfolk interview we left BAA Fest feeling the glow of success.  Success is a very slippery term and has different values in play for each person who uses it.  I would say that so far I have more or less accepted that if we don't have financial success it is OK.  That would seem to be some kind of self prophesy at this point.  

About this time in each tour I quietly sing Paul Simon's "Homeward Bound" to myself.  Certainly we have had nights where, "each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories and every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be Homeward Bound . . . and all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity, like emptiness in harmony, I need someone to comfort me."  Well, Baafest was none of that.  There was nothing the same about it and we felt great about our songs and our performance, and the audience recognized that.  It was great to make people laugh as I told them that sometimes someone will ask if we're Canadians.  For a moment we think, look quietly at each other in these days of the Donald and exclaim, "Yes, actually we're from Montreal merci!  We are in Harlepool and we play at the Hartlepool Folk club tonight.

Alex Warwick and John Montague "We're ready to play today"

Another high point was playing Monty's Acoustic Club with John Montague and Alex Warwick playing with us.  We have known John for a very long time and Alex played with us last year at Sutton-Cheney, and Monty's Acoustic Club.  It is always risky with elements of the ensemble that are improvised.  It was never predictable what Alex was going to play, but it was predictable that he is a very able percussionist and would play something cool.  John likewise has a lot of experience playing with different people.  He is a very tasty guitar player knowing how to make his instrument sound great.  He's also a very funny guy.  He kept us fed and watered for the time we were with him.  He always has great guitars for sale as well.  He had one sitting out that was a real temptation for me but I realized that if I bought a nice guitar like that I'd have to start taking better care of at least that instrument.  It might just look like another used guitar after I'd had it for a month.  At any rate I have no way to take two guitars back to the states with me unless I could get Kristi to leave her treasured Fender Mustang bass guitar with John. She was "no sale" on that one.  The Garrison guitar that I currently play is the best working guitar I've ever owned.  Apparently I'll keep it.

Alex with his electronic drum kit

Did I say we're in Hartlepool?   Last night we went to dinner with our dear friend Val Monteith-Towler.  It was a very nice Indian restaurant in Sunderland, a place in the Northeast where the only time we've spent has previously been to do our laundry.  Val texted a postal code to us and we followed the GPS to the restaurant.  It is interesting being guided by satellite as you never have any idea in a real sense of what kind of terrain you are going to be driving through.  Val drove down from Blythe and we drove up from Hartlepool.  

Salty Hartlepool Resident                                             

 It was a lot of laughs and memories to spend an evening with Val all to ourselves.  We had spent a little time with her at Belden's in N. Shields but it was with a lot of people around.  It wasn't the same as having an evening alone with her.  It was a bit funny as the waiter obviously looked to me to be the leader of the pack.  I don't know if it was because I'm a male or because I was the first part of our party that he encountered.  It seemed to me that he didn't consider Val and Kristi to be real people. He was very good otherwise.  Kristi and Val didn't seem to take it personally. They had a huge menu.  I think we could go back to that restaurant for a few months every week without having the same entree every time.

Steve with Kristi and Val

We actually have a few days left.  I don't see myself having time to blog during the time we have left.  Tomorrow we're in Dunfermline. The next day we'll be driving all day to Southampton.  I might have some time on Friday before we play at the F'o'c'sle Folk Club.  If I do I guess you may find out about it.  After we play on Friday we'll be driving directly to a Heathrow Airport hotel.  The next morning we will just have time to turn in our rental car and get on the airplane home.  We will be back in Tacoma by Saturday afternoon.

We are really looking forward to all of the bookings we have left as we have friends at all of them and that is a really valuable spinoff of doing what we do.  It is wierd that we may be gone for years and we only see them on Facebook but the familiar faces bring a smile to mine as I remember the good times, and good cheer that we have shared.  We cannot say for certain that we shall return whatever our intentions.  The years do not speak to us from the future.  We can look at the experiences of others and have some idea of what is in store, but certainty?  I don't think that there's much of that anywhere these days.  Death and taxes I suppose would be the kinds of things that you can predict for certain.  Life is good for now and we're doing our best to enjoy these years.  Keep the home fires burning- we'll be home soon.