Cherryholmes Concert

I'm back from last night's Cherryholmes concert on Grand Manan Island. Here's how the trip went down:

While waiting (about an hour) to board the ferry in Blacks Harbour, we got our instruments out and started the first of four jam sessions, right there in the vehicle lineup at the rear of Esther Prosser's van. That made the hour go by real quick.

Our picking group included Murray Sheils, Keith Hines, Esther Prosser, Lynn Hutchinson, Ed Betts, Ron Paisley, Buck McLeod and me. There were also a few innocent bystanders at the jam - Becky Betts, a couple friends of Ed and Becky, and a friend of Buck.

Once on the ferry, we had our second jam session. This seemed to make the crew quite happy; actually, they thought it was great, but I'm not sure if all the passengers were enthused.

We arrived on Grand Manan Island around 12:30 PM, which meant we had some time to kill before the concert. I wanted to meet Sheldon Frost, the promoter of the event, whom I had talked to on the telephone several times in the past few months. I called him with my cell phone to let him know I was on the island, then, Murray, Keith and I headed on down to Sheldon's house where the Cherryholmes family happened to be staying.

We met most of the Cherryholmes family, but not Sandy as she was out somewhere. I had quite a talk with Jere and Cia Leigh. Cia let me try her Huber Lexington banjo - I was blown away with the tone and volume coming out of that thing! I asked Cia if she would add her name to my banjo head of fame, which she gracefully did. Keith got most of the family to sign his newspaper clipping.

At 3:00 PM, we left Sheldon's house and headed to the Marathon Inn, where we were staying for the night. We had a jam session under a big old apple tree at the inn. We ended that jam at about 5:00 PM, had some supper, then headed to the school for the concert.

The talent in the Cherryhomes family is really something else; every single one of them has been granted the gift of music. Wow! What a performance they put on - just spectacular.

After the concert we had one final jam at some club, of which the name escapes me right now. We ended at 12:30 in the morning, because it was closing time. I think everyone was pretty tired anyway, I know I was.

I'm really glad all of us made the trip; the performance was well worth it.

Thanks to Becky Betts, here's a link to a few pictures of the trip.