Tea and Jam - Nashville style!

We're back in Nashville! Toronto was a lot longer than planned, but all in all, it was a very satisfying trip. After our crazy gig-filled week, we finally had some time to do family stuff. We ate lobsters, lassie buns, and lots of homemade cooking. We visited the Shaw Festival to see "Saint Joan", which was incredible. And we had many parties, including a sushi birthday, a spa birthday, and double celebrations of Mother's Day and Father's Day.

We took 2 days to drive back, enjoying a silly night in a roadside hotel - eating fast food outdoors, watching fireflies, and following the adventures of some local children and a litter of new-born kittens in the woods.

This week has been a little rough. I had 2 paying gigs almost firmed up for the summer, and both have fallen through in varying degrees. That, piled up with several smaller issues, left me feeling a little beat up by week's end. But I got lots of rest, and started to sing again (the antidote to all wrongs!), for tonight, we had...

Tea and Jam! Several months ago, we joined several fellow Shoutlifers at a great event called Tea and Jam. It's held at Madison Church of Christ, and features 2 musical acts (that's the "Jam" part). It's a free event, and they even serve complimentary coffee, hot chocolate, sweets, and ... Tea!

Tonight, we shared the stage with saxophonist, Jamie Reid. He's just put out a new hymns project, and his music is gorgeous!

We each had 12 songs to perform (Gerald and I were performing as a duo, so 12 songs between us). Usually each act does one set, but they tried a new format tonight with each act performing four 3-song-sets. We were worried this would be too much jumping up and down and resetting and stuff, but everything was very well organized, and I think the format made for a nice flow.

We did 2 covers - "I Have Decided" and "People Get Ready" - but the rest was all originals. Gerald did "Do You Trust the Wings God Gave You", which he hasn't done for ages. We did "My Child is Dancing With God", with me on harmonies, and as he sang his other songs, all I could think was "We need more harmonies!". After the show, our friend Tara came up and said, "You know what I wanted to hear? More harmonies!". If that's not a sign...

I did my personal favourites, including "Wedding at Cana", "Sing Me a Song", and the new one, "The Point of the Song". Overall, I was really pleased with things. The sound was great, which made us feel very comfortable. And I feel like we're building a performance repertoire, so that's feeling stronger each time. The crowd was small, but the feedback was great, and we've been invited back when our CDs are done. Whoo-hoo!

It's so good to be back here. I loved being home, but this is the adventure. Three years sounds like a long time, but I don't want to waste a second of it. I have so much I want to do here!