| Great Big Sea in Asheville, North Carolina |
| I had not seen a Great Big Sea show in 8 months and no dates were booked for the Northeast U.S. I REALLY wanted to do Birmingham because it was on my birthday. But that would have required three days off of school and the State Test is in two weeks. Not a good idea. So I decided to treat myself. I had to pick a weekend show because of school. I had wanted to do the Nashville show but couldn't get out of town until Saturday afternoon. So Asheville it was, and I'd opt for the one day off of school. I had invited Karen along to share the driving since she has recently gotten her learner's permit to drive. She eagerly accepted the invitation and I made reservations with Jane and the Days Inn. |
| “Asheville: Altitude Affects Attitude” was the slogan on the map the hotel clerk gave me. Oh my yes! Asheville DOES have attitude – a fun-loving, friendly, we-love-GBS kind of attitude. What a fun, fun show! The gorgeous scenery must have made this affect on the people. Looking at the green mountains everyday is a plus I guess. And 8 months without a GBS show gave me an attitude of eager anticipation. The show began a new week, which followed one of the most intense weeks at work I have ever experienced. I had been working on a curriculum project for the school district – big stuff this project. We were hand-picked by the CEO to be on this committee to get a job done by Thursday the 27th. I had already worked about 50 hours on it after school and at night for the past few weeks. It was frustrating because they kept changing their minds about what they wanted and then, when I had finished it all, typed out and ready to go, by Wednesday, THEN they changed the template completely and gave us until Sunday at 5 PM to have it finished yet again! I worked my little tail off, getting my 80 pages of stuff transferred from one format to another (down to 40 pages) and writing new info for each page. I was SO ready for this show – wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away. At 12:30 PM on Saturday, I finally typed the last words and off we went to Asheville. Oops! Wait! I had to get a tire because the one on the rear driver’s side was going bad and we were looking at a little over 1200 miles total on this trip. At the tire store, we had a good laugh when the guys talked about a foreign lady who gave them her “celery phone” number. New tire on the car, spare set in the back, we traveled to Jane’s house in Richmond and had a good night’s sleep after a jam session. “Auntie Mary” is sounding better and next time we’ll try to record it. Did most of the fiddle tunes from GBS and had a good time in general. We were sad because Jane couldn’t accompany us to Asheville but she’ll get to do Raleigh and probably Charlotte, so I won’t feel too badly for her! God bless Jane’s daughters who cheerfully gave up their room for Karen and I. Fortified with cinnamon bread in the morning, we took a detour to Chapel Hill to see a friend of Karen’s who is a freshman there. Had lunch, saw the peace rally and Karen parallel parked for the very first time! We only needed sweaters in Chapel Hill and threw our winter jackets in the back of the car. The Pushstars, Wicked Lester, Beatles, GBS, Runrig, Kelly Russell and the Planks – all good roadtrip music! Passed a couple very interesting road signs along the way - “Hunter’s Liver and Much Company” was one I don’t care to think too hard about but the one that really caught our collective eye was “Bat Cave.” Plus crossing the Eastern Continental Divide at 2,786 feet in elevation. Found our way to the motel and when we asked the clerk for the lovely map to the venue, he replied, “Oh! You’re here to see that band too?” There were quite a few of us at the Days Inn it seems. Met Dave (not Lynda’s Dave) in the lobby – he saw the GBS shirt and said hi. |
| After their soundcheck, it looked likeJordan and Kris were discussing guitars and Alan and Carter were playing dueling mandolins. Alan is quite good on the mandolin – it sounded to me like they were playing a tune I heard on the Kelly Russell and the Planks CD I got from Jane. But I have so many Newfoundland fiddle and accordion tunes in my head right now, they all run together, so I can’t say which one it was. The two guys sounded great though and their fingers were flying across those strings! There were some odd decorations in the bar – a baby doll riding a trombone, money on the ceiling, arrow tips protruding from the ceiling… weird. We met Brian and Maura who recognized Karen from the 9:30 Club debacle in DC last time. There were a lot of first-timers there last night and may I say the Carbon Leaf fans are some of the nicest people in the world. We were thoroughly entertained by Carbon Leaf who did a 10-song set very strongly. Jordan really rocked on the bass and what can you say about Carter the multi-talented? – “Wow” might be a good word. I think CL is the BEST opening band I have seen for GBS – better than the Pushstars. "The Boxer" got everyone up at the end dancing and boppin’. I did miss the bagpipes though. The 20-30 minutes between Carbon Leaf and GBS were spent loudly singing GBS songs – General Taylor, Old Black Rum, the Chemical Workers Song and a very “wanting” Mari Mac. The other songs we sang were great though – especially General Taylor because we sang the harmonies too. Karen commented we were having the after-show party before the show tonight. We even started a few Great Big Sea chants during the wait. The b’ys HAD to know the audience was thoroughly primed by the time they came running out. We may have been small but we were mighty. There were only about 100 there for Carbon Leaf but we all sang well and clapped and danced. By the time GBS came on, the crowd had swelled a bit to about 250, I guess. Karen seems to think there were more there but I don’t. |
| Venue was the Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall. Nothing fancy, just the basics. We arrived about 7 PM thinking we could get dinner but the restaurant potion of the bar was closed as was almost everything else in Asheville on Sunday – Walmart was open though and we got a disposable camera since I had left mine at school. Lynda and hubby Dave were there and we chatted for a while – nice to meet the famous Lynda. As usual, a very nice person – most GBS fans are. Inside, the band was just starting soundcheck. As I stood there chatting with Lynda, she pointed out the song they were rehearsing was Sean’s new song, “It’s Alright.” They played it thru about 4 times and I wondered why and trhen they did it once again later after they had also played what someone said was an Air Supply song. Turns out we were headed for a treat! Then Carbon Leaf had their soundcheck. Lynda shared with me that Alan had done the first solo of the tour and Sean the second and we both figured that meant it was Bob’s turn. (Someone forgot to tell Bob though.) |
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| The venue had some odd things as decor - Money glued to the ceiling, the ends of arrows sticking out of the ceiling, and a babydoll riding a trombone. |
| Lynda found me out first. She was a great person to hang out with. She and hubby, Dave, welcomed us to the venue warmly. I bought yet another GBS T-shirt. I need 23 to get all my class to wear them. |
| Asheville is tucked between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smokey Mountains in the southwest corner of North Carolina. What a beautiful place to visit in the dead of winter! It was a very welcome change from the still-one-foot-of-snow left in the backyard from three weeks ago. |