What A Blast!

I'm late writing this post, about 5 days to be exact.

We saw Nickel Creek at the Gypsy Tea Room. It was nothing less than incredible. The crowd was very eclectic, mostly consisting of twenty and thirty-somethings. There were also a number of late teens, fifty year olds and then our age, forty-somethings. I had figured the band to be what it actually was, full of energy and very improvisational. The sound was great, the lights good, and the music an extreme mixture of jazz, celtic, fusion bluegrass. NC played for what seemed about an hour and a half and blew most everyone that was sober, away. Oh of course there were a few members of the "come for the party and screw the manners we should have for the pheonominal musicians that are here to entertain us" crowd. But for the most part everyone else was there to be mesmerized, and they got their wish.

All of this description was belittled by what happened after the concert. Lead singer and mando master Chris Thile came from the bus armed with his Dudenbostel mandolin under coat. He then took a perch under Central Expressway. Chris began to play. The few amazed fans standing near the bus, slowly inched their way towards where he playing, to stand in amazement only inches from where the virtuoso was contorsing to the rhythm of the mando.

Ms. and I stayed until around 11:30 p.m. Although I hated to leave Chris Thile playing to me under a bridge in downtown Dallas, Texas she had to get some sleep for the next days shift.

The phone rang about an hour later with my daughter blurting out that she had just sang two songs with Chris. It seems that he and some other fans had heard her singing and that he appreciated not only her knowing his songs, but her voice as well. "You have a beautiful voice" he told her. That's the same thing I've said to her and my son for years without any success of having them play and sing to our live music at home. I guess that's because I'm not Chris Thile, just dad.