the bravest people there
Yesterday’s Littlest Rose Cancer Charity Showcase was great. Kate and I had some last minute challenges to overcome – the night before, Kate realized that her guitar wasn’t packed (she lives in Maryland, ergo can’t really just run home and get it), found a replacement guitar, I ended up playing electric instead of my acoustic (there wasn’t a mic stand around to mic my guitar), Kate and I had no idea what our guitars sounded like on stage (and that is not the sound guy’s fault, he was there for free and was extremely helpful and great to work with), and Kate and I had our first practice together about an hour before we went on.
But honestly, it went great. I sent Kate an email last night thanking her for letting me play with her on such a big day for her family. She thanked me for being patient and brave despite all the “problems” that cropped up for us 24 hours prior to playing. I was going to rehash what I said back, but I think just copying my response is fine (and my fingers are tired)…
Here’s the thing about you letting me play… the bravest people there yesterday was your nephew and his family. But on top of entertaining some folks for a bit and getting a couple extra people to come to donate to such a good cause; there’s another benefit for me – I really want to start playing out again. That felt good. Whether it sounded passable, great, or terrible – I loved the process. I missed carrying my gear around, solving those last second problems that sometimes pop up. Thank you Kate, I missed my inner rock star – haven’t seen him for at least 10 years!
Now, I’m not going to join a band again or anything – I’m an extremely busy Dad and anything that comes into my life HAS to work around that. But yeah, I am going to stop shying away from playing live and joining friends when they ask me to play. And especially if Kate asks me to join her on stage again – what an unbelievable voice!
But back to the real reason for the day… anyone who would like to help Charlie and his family with a donation… send checks to Katrina Stritch 121 Algonquin Trail Medford Lakes NJ 08055. Please make checks payable to “The Charlie Haughey Fund”.
Videos from yesterday’s performance… Small Disguise (Chris Buhalis cover)…
Arms of a Woman (Amos Lee cover)…
Tracy’s party was nice – great food, lots of friends (although some were definitely missed), great margaritas, and a guitar being passed around. That’s good evening.
Tim + Uke = Awesome…
- Dale Peterson Means Business Alabama – and holy shit he has a gun.
- Ian McKellen – Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Small Business/Tech Links…
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Good to see you (and Kate) paying and playing your talent forward.
May 23rd, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Thanks for the shout, Van. It was a lot of fun and an all around good day and it meant so much to me to be there.
If you are up for it, I think we’ll have a gig (when we can actually hear what the he@# we’re doing!!:) in our future – maybe say, P.J.s? Or if there is a better place (Otts?, elsewhere?) recommend away. Let me know, and I’ll set it up for the summer. It, too, would be a charity thing. Oh, yeah, since you are now officially part of Team Charlie, you should find a Team Charlie tee shirt in your mailbox sometime soon. (It is waiting for you at the Haugheys’, though I don’t know when they’ll drop it off, as Charlie went back to the ER with a low grade fever last night. He should be fine and it is pretty routine at this point, but we had a feeling based on how he looked yesterday. . .) Send good thoughts . . .
Peace and gratitude . . .
Kate
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:21 pm
You guys were amazingly pulled together; I would never have known about all the behind-the-scenes drama! Great voice, Kate. Wow.
And Van? The hair rocks.
May 24th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
That’s fantastic!
July 12th, 2010 at 8:12 am
[...] really. And then I thought about an awesome post I saw this past Saturday night on Facebook, from Charlie‘s Mom, [...]