This weekend has been a whirlwind of music, smoke, fish and snow.  Tuesday night's outing at the bar turned out to be a lot more fun than I had anticipated.  First of all, the benefits were killer.  Both significant other and I were admitted without having to fork over the $7 cover, and I was given three drink tickets redeemable for three cheap beers.  As a non drinker, I traded them for friends.

We were the final act of the night, playing from around 11:00 to midnight.  The crowd was loud, and mixing at the soundboard was one-of-a-kind.  We played to a screaming inebriated crowd.  Without pickups, my little mando was drowned by the booming bass and ringing guitar.  I'll need to either get a pickup installed in my old Weber mando, or I'll need to break down and get an electric if I am to be heard.

The old man tunes at Burt's in the dark, smoky "musicians area"

We played about twelve songs that lyrically covered the most important things including church, love, loss and a giant ship filled with religion.  Musically, it was an amalgamate of various sounds favoring the bass and the guitar.  The banjo and mando needed to step into the marvelous world of electronics to compete.  I would guess we sound much better during our practices, though a few beloved in attendance claimed we sounded great.

Warming up on stage

With my lack of experience performing, I was unsure what to expect.  I discovered that the well-oiled audience is a grateful and forgiving one, and that the teetotalers in the band were the ones that came through in the end.  The whole ordeal was a lot of fun and I would gladly do it again when the next chance comes.  It's looking like I'll be at it again sometime near the end of May.  Maybe it will finally be warm by then.

The other half of the whirlwind took place in Montana on the Beaverhead and Madison rivers.  I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll post them when they make their way to my inbox.  Dad, uncle, cousin, brothers and I caught probably around one hundred fish over the duration of the trip.  I got a cold (probably from Burt's Tiki Lounge), but managed to fish through it.  The weather was freezing up until the minute it was time to head back to Utah, but the objective was to catch fish.  We reeled them in in great numbers, so the trip was an overwhelming success.  In the future, I will probably be making this trip with Springbar tent and kids in tow.  I'll be the happier for it, though a time will come when I will surely miss the days of responsibility-free fly fishing.  I have seen entire afternoons spent on the bank as father and offspring stare and contemplate massive tangles of unruly nylon as trout rise free of threat or concern.