Blown' in the Wind

     Throughout the winter and early spring, our jam has been has been doing our playing inside the McBride Train Station lobby.  In the Spring when the weather outside warms, we move out onto the porch to play,  but because it has been a cool Spring, it wasn’t until yesterday that it looked like it would warm enough to play outside. 

    I sent out an email to inform everyone that we would be playing outside on the porch.  I hate making decisions that rely on future weather because I am generally wrong, but it did look like the temperatures would be warm enough.

    Unlike playing inside in the small lobby where we can hear each other, when we play outside the sound doesn’t carry very far, so I had to drag out our PA system so we could use microphones for the vocals.  I had to relearn how to pack my car to carry the PA speakers, mics, mic stands, and amplifier,, as well as all of the music stands that we use.

       Throughout the day yesterday we had strong winds, and I had my fingers crossed hoping they would abate, but unfortunately they didn’t.  When I got to the train station the wind was still blowing like crazy.  The wind was was strong enough to blow over a music stand.  I did set up the PA, system, but when we tried it out, we kept getting a loud roar from the blowing wind on the mics, so we ended up not using it.  

    We are rather spread out on the porch and with the wind, it was hard to hear one another, but it didn’t stop us from playing.  Everyone had to use clothes pins to hold down the pages in their song books and prevent them from turning in the middle of a song.

    The wind also caused everyone to get chilled as the evening progressed.  This caused a constant flow of people going back to their cars to get jackets and hats, and even some blankets were brought out.

    The blustery weather did inspire us to play “Blowin’ in the Wind”, a song we hadn’t done for a long time.

    It wasn’t the best start to our outside playing season, but we persisted, and unless it is raining next Tuesday, we will be outside on the porch again.

    I didn’t get around to take a photo last night, but the 2024 picture above does show the group in their jackets and hats.

View ny paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca