Big Lick Blues Festival

I had planned a totally relaxed weekend-- afterall I had had an adventure 2 weekends ago and had worked AND had gone to a Greek Festival last weekend-- so I was due a couch and paperwork weekend. But then I read a little bit about this Blues Festival going on 15 minutes away. The promise of an evening of music, combined with the lovely sunny 70 degree weather, were enough to move my bottom off the couch. Afterall, I can lounge just as easily on grass listening to blues!

Went at 3pm, left at 10pm. Very strongly considered heading to Blues cafe where they were holding an "After festival jam session" with the artists...but I used my head and decided that walking back to my car at 10pm was stupid enough. If I had roped someone into coming with me, I would have been there until dawn! On second thought, if I had been with someone I probably would have left at 8pm instead-- my friends here are way too sensible. Lovely, but sensible.

I just have to say it. Shemekia Copeland is a beautiful woman with a great set of pipes. She turned off the microphone towards the end of her performance and just SANG. Oh. My. Gosh. That was cool. For a sample of her- go here.

Jimmy Thackery played before her- I liked his long instrumental blues, but I could have lived without the lyrical ones.

I ate some awesome ribs and chatted with an older school teacher named Martha who had recently had her voice "saved" by an SLP. I love being a SLP! She was a funny duck- Martha was! She asked a whole bunch of questions when I first sat down and then said, "aren't you sorry you sat next to me? If you hadn't, I might not have talked to anyone all day!" Well, that's true for me too- but it's not such a daunting thing to me. I enjoyed chatting with her and she was kind enough not to talk during the music. It was fun having someone to laugh at the dancers with- a few guys down on stage were trying very hard to look graceful when dancing with their wives. At the end of the night I folded up my blanket and joined the growing group dancing in a mosh pit on stage and said goodbye to the very lovely Martha. Then I spent the last 2 hours probably being laughed at by the rest of the sitting audience because I love to dance, but I'm of Irish decent and anything but a jig looks awkward on me. I tried to blend in by bobbing, but occasionally involved my elbows and at least once gave off a good imitation of a butt wiggle. The song called for it.

Sunday was spent on the couch. And doing paperwork. And laundry. All good things to do from the couch position. 3 more weekends left- any suggestions?