This weekend TAF made another trip down to the southland. We played two shows (at Jack of the Wood in Asheville, NC, and at the River Rendezvous Climbing Fest in Fayetteville, WV). We played in front of big, loud, enthusiastic crowds both nights, and made many new friends.

Good old Ronnie Burgundy was good to us and decided not to break down. He got us to the gigs and survived the trials of those roller coasters they call roads in Western NC and WV. Asheville was lots of fun, nice people all over the place. That night we got to enjoy the comfort of a real home (courtesy of a very generous friend of a friend) before heading up to West Virginia for Saturday’s performance at the climbing fest. The drive into the venue was beautiful. We crossed New River Gorge over the longest single arch bridge in the western hemisphere. (The dorky Modern Marvels fan in me thought that was pretty cool.) The people running the festival were so nice and made us feel so welcome, making sure we had everything we needed. Free food and beer the whole time. They even went and found plates and cups for us, because we didn’t know it was BYO for sustainability’s sake. Saturday brought the first day of good weather to the climbers, so they were all pretty tired, but that didn’t stop them from partying. By 11, they were craving live music (instead of the techno and hip hop they’d been blasting over the system all day.) And so as soon as we hit the first note, they were dancing. During the second song, two girls rushed the stage, and were dancing around. Then one of them tried to strum Erik’s guitar while he was playing it, while the other grabbed Pete’s bass drum mic and started singing into it. She didn’t know the words, so all that came out was tone deaf LA la la LALA la… (Apparently, according to Curt the sound guy, one of them punched a friend of his after the other tried to pickpocket him, and they both ended up getting kicked out.) Anyway, people didn’t let up the whole time - We had a cut off time of 1:30, but they wouldn’t let us leave the stage, so we played three or more encores and finally stopped by 2 o’clock.

There was one mishap though, Pete gave you the low down already. Thanks goodness he’s ok, nothing broken, not even sprained. A bruised hip and femur and a hyper-extended finger. However it was enough for us to have to cancel the gig the next night in Thomas, WV. They were totally understanding, so we set out for home. And got back early this morning.

So there’s the story of the weekend. Thanks for tuning in.

Lyon