Yes, another road trip. What can I say? I’m in that kind of mood. I caught Enter the Haggis again at the Sun Music Hall in Floyd, Virginia on April 24 and again at the Sedalia Celtic Festival the next day.

Sun Music Hall is a small, relaxed venue in a picturesque Blue Ridge village. The crowd was young and energetic. I suspect many students from Virginia Tech made the trip from nearby Blacksburg. The guys played what’s becoming their pretty standard two sets, heavy on material from the new CD. Having seen them four times now, it’s been interesting to see the new songs evolve and begin to have a life of their own beyond what’s been recorded. And speaking of that, some of the “old” songs are taking on breathtaking new life. Specifically, “Long Way Home.” This tune has gone from one that I really didn’t think that highly of when it was recorded on “Soapbox Heroes” to one of my absolute favorites. I think a lot of that is due largely to Trevor’s growth as a musician (that’s Trevor Lewington, ETH’s guitar player for the uninitiated). It’s obvious that he’s gained a ton of confidence and technical skill in the last few years. Any semi-skilled guitar player can do a standard blues progression, but it takes real soul to pull it off the way he’s been doing lately on “Long Way.” I also got to hear “Death of Johnny Mooring” for the first time at Floyd. It was every bit as dynamic and exciting as I expected it to be. Brian (Buchanan, the fiddle player) has a lot of fun on this song, coaxing sounds out of his fiddle that are heretofore unknown to man.

The next day at the Sedalia Festival, the sets were much the same. Very, very solid, lots of material from the new CD. “Murphy’s Ashes” continues to be a standout. I simply love the way this song builds in intensity, backs off, and builds again to its nearly ear-splitting conclusion. It’s one of the ones I can feel right under my sternum, if that makes any sense. The crowd, however, could not have been more different than the previous night. It mostly resembled Sunday morning at a Southern Baptist Convention. People were appreciative to be sure, but simply would not get up and dance. The rest of it was everything a festival day should be. Warm, sunny weather. Good friends. Great music. Decent beer. It was a real treat to get to know some people I really hadn’t had a chance to hang out with before.

Look for a focus on local and solo musicians coming up here in the next few weeks as the Oklahoma Renaissance Faire begins and I start reviewing some faire band CDs and performances.

I took off on Friday for some badly needed me-time and headed up to Dayton, OH to see Enter the Haggis. Why yes, I did make two 20-hour round trips in six days to see these guys. They are that good. People often don’t understand the lengths I will go to to hear good music. At some point, I’ll post about the total lack of a music scene where I live.

Anyway, took off around 6:00am and headed up I-44.

So, I’m driving up I-44 south of St. Louis. I’m doing just over the limit, listening to Arcturus by ETH and feeling happy. I see a cop in the left median, so I pull into the right lane, cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. He pulls out, gets behind me, then pulls around and ahead of me, then alongside. Then he drops back and puts on the flashers.

I’m utterly confused at this point and running through the mental checklist. No lights out. Registration up to date. Not speeding. I got bupkis. He comes over to the passenger side and motions me to open the door. So I do and he says, “Did you know that your front license plate is missing?” WTF??

I said, yes, it’s in the trunk. I don’t have a front mount and it’s not the law in MO that you have to have a front tag, just a recommendation. He taps my cooler, which I have sitting in the passenger seat so I can get at it, and says, “Whatcha got in here?”

You have no idea how tempted I was to say, “Illegally harvested internal organs. There’s a Russian crime boss who’s gonna be pissed if this heart goes bad before his transplant.” But I didn’t. I said, “soda, mostly.” He kept questioning me about where I was going what I was doing, etc. Finally I just clammed up and handed him my license. He was flat-out hassling me and I was sick of it.

Of course I didn’t have my insurance card. He gave me a warning for that and told me to have my husband take care of that for me when I got home. Sexist bastard.

To make matters worse, he interrupted Arcturus. Even my *husband* doesn’t interrupt me when I’m listening to Arcturus.

So that was my cop adventure on this trip. It felt like old times. On the road to hear music, getting hassled by the cops! I still haven’t the foggiest idea why he pulled me over…

I have my typical Haggis hangover this morning. My feet hurt from dancing, I’m hoarse from singing and cheering, and I’m *so* tired. Totally, totally worth it. This is the first of two posts about the show. This one will be an informal trip report. The next will be a more formal review of the actual show.

The Canadian and I got up Saturday morning at 5:00 and were out the door by 6:00. The trip was mostly uneventful but UGH…southern Illinois. I-55 between St. Louis and Chicago has to be the most boring drive on the planet. There are no cows, no houses, no horses, no trees, no scenery, no hills, no towns. *nothing* Just fields and grain silos.

We got to Chicago about 3:00 and I immediately collapsed for a nap while the Canadian went to do some reconnaissance at the venue. The hotel room was amazing! Hotels.com rocks. $88 for a suite at the Write Inn, a gorgeous, vintage 1920s hotel. The suite had a jacuzzi tub, kitchenette, and a gas fireplace! The hotel even had one of those old-fashioned elevators with the doors you open yourself. The Canadian woke me up around 5:00 and I spent the next hour or so making myself sufficiently beautiful. Chicago is a big city and I wanted to look stylish. Besides, we were meeting friends I hadn’t seen in almost nine years.

We headed over, scored a great parking space and met up with our friends at Wishbone, next door to Fitzgerald’s where the show would be. It was a real treat to see my friend and her husband. We hadn’t seen or talked to them in almost eight years. Facebook is the devil, but it can come in handy for reconnecting with old friends. The restaurant’s contemporary Cajun and Creole cuisine was a welcome surprise. It’s rare to find creative vegetarian food where I’m from and Wishbone really hit the mark with a large section of delicious-looking vegetarian dishes. I settled on the hoe cakes with grilled vegetables, described in the menu as “Roasted red peppers, spinach, portabella mushrooms and zucchini sautéed in white wine with a touch of cream smothered over a cheese grit cake.” It was rich, yet not too heavy and the vegetables were cooked perfectly. We carried our food over to Fitzgerald’s to eat, as the host had invited us to do. As we ate and drank, the waitresses set out candles and the club dimmed all the lights for Earth Hour which made for a really nice ambiance.

At this point, I need to digress about beer. Imported honey wheat beer by the pint does not equal domestic beer by the bottle. I forgot to get the name of it, but whatever it was, it was a lovely, sour honey wheat with a lemony undertone. Very refreshing, smooth and *deceptively* alcoholic! It really snuck up on me and I wound up being a lot more…erm…tipsy… than I like to get. But the Canadian tells me that I handled it relatively well and didn’t make an apocalyptic fool of myself, so it’s all good.

We also met up with some online friends, both awesome guys. As we all talked and got to know each other we realized that three of the couples, including us, had had home births! Three homebirth families in a crowd of about…150? is an amazing coincidence.

So, back to the show. Enter the Haggis opened with “The Litter and the Leaves” off their new CD, “Gutter Anthems.” It was wacky high-energy. I’ll write more about the actual show in my more formal review in my next post. Suffice it to say here that the first set was excellent.

Here, I’ve got to put in a note about the “dancers”. There was one woman…good god. I’d talked to her outside. She was super drunk and ranting about Obama being a terrorist, if that tells you anything. Anyway, inside, she was…amusing. Advice for posterity? Attempting to step dance in high heels is not a good idea. Honestly, I didn’t notice her much, being lost in the music as I tend to get. But from other people’s reports it was quite the spectacle.

After the break, another full set including the *best* version of “One Last Drink” that I’ve ever heard. (That might have been in the first set, my memory is a bit hazy on the order of things.) Also, “Ghosts of Calico” which was exactly as amazing as I knew it would be. Like I said, I’ll write more about that in my next post…

I was Craig-side during the show, a vantage point I’d never had before. He’s hilarious and clearly loves what he’s doing. He gets a twinkle in his eye that’s just a joy to see. It was also a new experience for me to see the guys so close up. It made seeing intricate tunes like “Congress” so much more amazing, just from being able to see Trevor play up close.

After the show, prodded by the Canadian and friends, I managed to actually speak with each of the guys and get my picture taken and my CD signed. Some of you may realize what a huge deal that was for me. Social anxiety sucks sometimes. It’s not like a star-struck thing, either (that, my friends, is a whole separate post). It’s just terminal shyness around anyone I don’t know.

Discovered that the car battery had died, but thankfully a friend was able to give us a jump and we headed back to the hotel to collapse. Trip home was uneventful and boring. The snow that started to fall in the night stopped about an hour south of Chicago, so didn’t slow us down as much as we’d feared. Got a Twitter from the band that made me laugh. They made it back to Canada before we made it home one state away! That either speaks to how big this country is, or to what insane nuts we are for driving so far in the first place. I’m thinking the latter…

Peace out…look for the show review within the next day or so.