Fire and Ice

"Oh the weather outside is frightful" is probably appropriate the past couple of days - really this is typical Minnesota, but usually January not December. We had two pretty good bunches of snow, combined with our first sub-zero night last night. Really though the weather has been pretty good - the ice/freezing rain they promised last night didn't happen, and besides being cold getting around is ok.

This has been an action-packed week. Friday night fortunately was some down time after a very busy week of work and activities. We stayed home and had Erin's wonderful chicken soup, hot tea, and played games and watched some shows we have fallen behind on (Ugly Betty is just so funny these days!)

Saturday was dedicated to the Blue Moon gig my band Fuego had going on that night. Around 2:00 Martial showed up and we started loading everything - an interesting process in 10-degree snowy windy weather but we got it all in and headed over to the Blue Moon. One of the Diego Sanchez dance lessons was going on as we were setting up, which was fun to watch - he's REALLY good, both as a dancer as an instructor. Finally by 6:00 we had everything set up and sound checked and were out of there.

The big moment finally arrived as we got back at 8:00 and after another Diego dance lesson group we kicked off the evening at 8:30. I know I'm biased, but we really sounded good - it's so much fun to play for a lively crowd with great musicians - the energy just keeps feeding back and forth and by the end of the first set we were rockin' (or "salsa-in'" to be more correct I guess). We rocked the house in the second set - we have one heavy jazz/blues song we have been throwing in adding our own flavor to it, and the crowd just ate it up. And after the second break, a song from the CD was playing and we just spontaneously started playing with it, and kept the groove going for another 4 minutes or so - everyone ate that one up too. We finished off with what I think is probably our best song now and it was just fun. Teardown, off to my house at 12:30am to unload, and by 1:00 I was too wired to go to bed :) Complete set of pictures below.

Blue Moon gig December 2008

I did manage to get a little sleep before waking up and meeting friend Bill for coffee and a much-needed big breakfast. I'm sure at some point here I'll crash and need a nap...for now I'm just enjoying the great feeling of yesterday and watching the snow slowly come down and the kitties chase each other around.