Friday, November 28, 2008

Holiday Lights Festival/Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving performance - from a musicians standpoint, nothing beats a great performance, when everything goes right. Last night, we sang for the Holiday Lights Festival downtown. Omaha kicks off the Christmas/holiday season with Holiday Lights Festival every year. The Mayor does a countdown, and over a million tiny white lights covering all the trees that align our downtown streets light up simultaneously. It's quite breathtaking.

We were honored to perform a half hour "pre-lighting" show, filled with Christmas music from our first Christmas CD, "Ribbons and Pine", our lullaby CD, "Stardust" our upcoming Christmas CD, and a few other just-for- fun Christmas tunes.

Now when you're booked for a gig in late November, outside, at night, in the Midwest, you're taking a few risks...the weather could be awful, you freeze your hands off, the wood on your guitar could crack, gusts of wind could choke your throat and blow over the keyboard, and no one would show up. Or, as was the case last night, you have a clear, beautiful, slightly cool evening - nothing that a free cup of hot chocolate won't cure - a perfectly exquisite sound system with professional sound persons, a well organized event, and a crowd of nearly 30, 000.

People cheered, clapped, sang along, and were just generally the perfect audience, made up of all generations. Lots of families with kids happily running about, enjoying the night air and each other. It was so easy to sing our hearts out on this one. A big thanks to Carly Barth, who organized the event - she did an amazing job!

Top this off with Thanksgiving dinner in the company of a warm, loving family of over 70 people, more music, and plenty of sentimental tears... and I know that these are the memories I want to hold on to for life. It was a perfect evening.

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