The tidal wave that is Great Big Sea certainly hit Herndon Virginia last night. I don�t think Herndon was really prepared for it, but every single person on the field was swept away by the powerful performance given by the b�ys. As Katie said, �It rocked!�
We came to the Herndon street festival not quite knowing what to expect ourselves. Other than the creeping traffic on I-95 coming down from Philly, the trip was uneventful. Happy coincidence was having the hotel directly across the street from where the shuttle busses were running to the festival. My daughter Karen was on crutches due to some Memorial Day shenanigans, but she didn�t let that get her down. The night before she had spent the evening making a T-shirt which declared, CAN�T STOP FALLIN� MY ANKLE BETRAYS ME. She even wore her orange pants in Alan�s honor. More on that later. We met up with some fans in the parking lot � Michele, Becky, Carolyn and someone else (sorry!)
Karen teased me since I yelled �Yo! Great Big Sea!� at them to get their attention. You can take the girl out of Philly, but you can�t take Philly out of the girl. *L*
As we found the Center Stage area and plopped our stuff down for the evening, we met a gentleman who had been there for 2 hours already staking out his claim. Turns out his wife is from Argentia and although she had never heard GBS, she had heard that they play trad songs. So she gave him the order to get a good spot. What started out being an �I don�t know I like them too much� attitude ended UP with her dancing around with the rest of us, yelling for more!
We met Fran first, then Kristin and Diane, K�s sister and boyfriend, Joanna, Jane and her 3 kids, Jenny and Caroline, Allison, Howard and Cheryl, Jess and her parents, and a few others whose names I have completely forgotten. So there ended up being about 25 of us right up there center stage front. A great cheering section!
A group called Cravin Dogs was on right before GBS. Some people liked them and some not. They had a great fiddle player whose fiddle looked like Bob�s electric one, except it was purple. He had some sounds coming from that fiddle that I didn�t know fiddles could make! After their set, we had another hour before GBS was supposed to come on and we had a great time meeting up with old friends and making new ones. I just love GBS fans � a great bunch!
The place really started to fill up and we started to see the b�ys peeking out from behind the stage curtain. First Alan, then Darrell, then S�an, then Alan a few more times. We all waved and he waved back eventually. They seemed surprised and happy to see the swarm of people filling the place up so much. I guess by the end of the night there were several thousand people there � more tan 2,000 but less than 5,000 I guess. At any rate, more than they are used to here in the States. Danny did his thing on stage �la-la-ing� to his heart�s content. Someone suggested we should start a Danny Thomas Fan Club. Someone else suggested that we call it �Danny�s Dames!� When it was finally time to get them up on the stage, the crowd was pretty revved to see them. There was a mad scramble to the front of the stage about 5 rows deep almost immediately. That 5 rows kept doubling all night until the entire place was on its feet moving, clapping, dancing, and or singing for the last 5-6 songs � toddlers and grannies alike. |
