Mini Corn Dogs and the Outfield: March 1, 2009

After a room service breakfast and a light workout (note to self: don't try to do step-ups with 35 pound dumbells in each hand during moderate waves), we went poolside to hear Brandi Carlile and the Indigo Girls. It was a great show. They have written a few songs together, and Brandi's voice fit in perfectly with the Indigo Girls' harmonies. It was so windy that a slice of cheese blew off of my chicken sandwich. That's windy, people.

We then saw Web Wilder, with a few members of the Flaming Groovies: fun party music with rocking guitars. We walked around, got a little sun, and vowed to go hang out in the Fore hot tub before the trip was done.

After some room service pizza and a shower, it was time for our first ticketed show, the Indigo Girls.

The show was really fun, with Brandi joining them for three or four songs. Mindy Smith came out to sing Come to Jesus (one of my favorite songs). She was quite nervous, but sang beautifully, accompanying herself on the guitar. A somewhat frantic woman named Danielle Howle sang a song with the Indigo girls also. She has written lots of songs for the performers on this ship. She has a really nice voice.


By the pool we listened to Zac Brown Band. Zac has an amazing voice, a great band, thoughtful lyrics, and a big fat bushy beard. His father was on the cruise with him, which was nice. We got to see half of Kathleen Edwards’ set again, because we knew we would not be able to see her last performance due to another ticketed show at the same time. She played some of the same songs. She also told a great story about how someone had told her that he saw her husband, Colin Cripps, sitting in the kids area of the ship’s buffet restaurant. He said, “The tables were a little small, but I thought that’s where people sit.” It was hilarious. He didn’t notice the tiny corndogs or the grilled cheese in the really short buffet there. She forgot a verse to one song and her husband pointed that out to her. Perhaps he wanted to get back at her for telling the story of the kids buffet. She closed the set with “Your Love” by the Outfield. Unbelievably funny. Her husband was playing the solo and she said, “Do your own. That cheesy eighties crap is the worst.” A really fun performer. Make sure you don’t miss her if she ever comes to your town.

It was off to the Atrium to catch more Vienna Teng. She really is unbelievable.Here she is doing The Last Snowfall from her upcoming album. Hopefully her voice transcends the crappy audio and video. She is looping her breath as the percussion track, and then builds her vocal harmonies with each pass. It's really slick.





On the last song of her set the keyboard started making terrible noises. People refused to leave and so she moved down to the lobby to play on the piano there, but it was locked. Who locks a piano? Like some drunken cruiser is going to get on there and start playing it? Maybe so on this trip, but it would be GOOD because chances are, the person could really play. At any rate, she just had Alex play acoustic guitar and everyone sang along. I really got the impression that she had as much fun as we did. It was a great moment. She even exclaimed at one moment, “This is so awesome!”

In the bathroom I met a guy from Chicago who told a story similar to mine: he’d heard Vienna Teng’s voice and it stopped him in his tracks. At this point I’ve had so many cool moments I am starting to worry I will forget them, or they will lose their intensity. Not all of these moments happened in the bathroom. I was really referring to the performances.

Polly headed down to the room and I went to see Mindy Smith. Her set was a mess. She was under the impression that she needed to fill the time between songs with lots of banter. She tried, but she was so nervous, it came off like a train wreck. The Indigo Girls were there heckling her to “Just play!” She forgot the lyrics to three songs and stopped in the middle. Some people left from the front sections. She said, "Are you leaving? Are you mad at me?" It was endearing, but still a little hard to watch. Went to bed around 12:30.