Well Jon,
You would've loved it. It (the German Club across the street from the main entrance) wasn't as packed as any festival Friday or Saturday night but it was packed probably somewhere between 125 to 150 people there, could be more, shit it didn't get above frezzing here, it's mid winter (but it was hot inside), someone (no names here) even started to undress in the middle of the floor, they were getting dollar bills stuck in their waist band. Not everyone lead songs (but everyone who wanted to lead did) but I don't think there were any there that wasn't singing, it was infecteous & it was a free for all format. I'm surprized you didn't hear us. It went on from 1:00 in the afternoon till they shut it down at 5:00. 4 hrs of solid shanty singing with gaps long enough to swallow a drink,,,quickly, bing, bang, boom, the bling was flying! Marc Bernier has to be congradulated on his pulling together & pulling off such a wonderfull afternoon event (which BTW pulled in over $2000 for the festival) Great work Marc, he also has to be congradulated on nearly debassing the whole thing (almost) with his rendition of the X rated version (is there a PG version of this?) of the Rollin Pin song, great job again Marc! It promises to be an espically good festival year, I probably won't be performing there but that only means hopefully there'll be much better there than the likes of me, so it'll be well worth anyone attendance, OK, say that isn't saying much, break my heart, go on. It seems that the Thrusday night events will be brought back into the program this year (after missing maybe a couple yrs) & they're adding a Friday symposium, with a Coast Guard aid, along with the usual Saturday morning one, thank you Coasties. They did give out the names of a few of who's gonna be performing (& they're great names) but I'm not the one who should be leaking any of that kind of stuff in public, I'll leave that to thiose that are on the inside. All I can say is that unless I need another organ before June & even if I need a new organ I'm there with a full beating heart. Anyone who attended todays blast will be there too, it was just magicial, I hope that this becomes a mid winter tradition for the festival forecasting, it was much more than just a shot in the arm not only for me, I'm already medicated but for the festival too. It certinally shows great signs of what's to come. I wished you & Rika could've been here. See you in September if not sooner.

Barry