Bluegrass - Must be Frozen!

Last night was so cold but we had been planning a night out so the temperature really didn't matter. Just before we were going to leave, I went out to put Ambra and Sierra in and when I came back to the house, Don suggested that since we only had to go a kilometre, why didn't we walk. It might not have been windy and snowing, but I nixed that idea immediately. Tooooooo darn cold. So we drove the kilometre, parked the car and walked across the street to the Capital Theatre for an evening of bluegrass music by a local band called Mountain Rush.

The theatre, like everything else in Oxford is old and worn, but cared for nonetheless. Teeny, tiny foyer with hardly enough room for more than five people at a time, but I suppose when you barely seat 130 on the lower level and maybe 60 in the balcony, you don't really need a whole lot of room at the front door. The rows of seats are bolted to a wooden floor and their frames reminded me of the wrought iron legs of the old Singer sewing machines. As we sat waiting for the concert to begin, all around us, people who'd probably known each other since birth, chatted and caught each other up on how life was treating them.

The walls and the ceiling were covered with pressed tin panels, fleur-de-lis on the walls and a different pattern on the ceiling. The stage was small and I wondered what kind of acts might have been performed there over the many years that this little building had been standing. I wonder if anyone has ever kept any kind of history? A man in the most embroidered jacket I have ever seen, cruised through the crowd, selling 50/50 tickets. And the gentleman who was the host for the evening chatted generally with the crowd, every so often, mentioning the guy with the wonder jacket. It was so folksy, that it was surreal.

Then two members of the band came on stage, accompanied by a little girl, thirteen years old, and she was the featured singer for the evening and I gotta say, she had quite a voice for a kid. So good! Then the rest of the band joined them, and all in all, we were treated to two hours of bluegrass oldies, and some newies (is that a legitimate word?) I really enjoyed the evening.

When the concert was done, we all grabbed our coats and headed out into the dark night. Cold, cold, cold....but a short ride back to the house and as we got out of the car, we looked up into the black sky and saw the stars twinkling so clear and bright. It was beautiful, and then we hurried into the house to stoke the fire. We had a good day, and the evening was a great capper to it.