Finally got together with our friends the Olsons, whom we haven't seen all together in..sad to say probably around 6-8 years. We used to hang with them a lot when our kids were all born and grew up together in Charlotte. Then the family moved to Boone and we saw them a couple times a year, maybe, but most often each New Year's Eve when we'd spend the night or weekend at their place in Boone. THEN they moved to the East Coast of NC and we never see them anymore. So it was a special few hours spent celebrating the graduation from Culinary Arts school of their 2nd son. It was like getting together with family all over again. Love them all!
From there we headed to the Mike Strauss Band/Stephen Warwick & the Secondhand Stories show @ the Muse. Wow, Mike has SOME huge band setup going on now. While it took a song or two to get my ears wrapped around this new collection of members and instruments, it wasn't too long before I saw it all in a whole new light and pretty much a brand new band, with VERY talented players. Add to the regular mix of guitars, vocals, drums & upright bass a violin, trombone AND keys..it turns into Big Band arrangements, which really worked behind Mike's new songs. Hope Nichols joined them the 2nd half of the set and they played some choice cover songs, with mostly Hope on lead vocals. You could tell they were all having a great time together.
Stephen & Secondhand Stories played one of the "mellowist" sets I've seen them do. It was a more subdued, subtle set that, again, SO worked! I was really happy that by the last couple of songs, Stephen had managed to grab the audiences' attention and get them to listen to a band, as I've said on numerous occasions, will be headliners in major venues in the future. The CD is mastered and will soon be released too and I am REALLY excited about that!!
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