greedy

Two good bands apparently aren't enough for me...wishing there was more of a listing about who else might be joining the cruise (Carbon Leaf? Gaelic Storm? ??)

Ships & Dip V

Okay, so just changed the blog title slightly so that I can start adding info about S&D V. Yes, five. They seem to have a fear of even numbers. It's actually the 3rd annual cruise. We'll be double-dippers. There are those who will be triple-dippers, and then there are the dipper-skippers who went on I, missed III, and are returning for V.)

Save the date for the 1st week of February was shared several weeks ago, but the all important information about which bands would be joining the hosting Barenaked Ladies was slow in coming.

It was finally announced that Great Big Sea would be joining the cruise. In his twitter posts, Sean claimed that they were holding of for an open bar tab on mojitos. Perhaps true, since pre-sale info arrived shortly after the announcement. A little odd to be looking at the 2009 calendar in May of 2008.

Day 7: the end

It’s fabulous to have the weekend to recover and readjust to winter before returning to work.

Here I show off the sweatshirt I bought on the cruise. Hey, it was a little chilly in the evenings. I needed it.

The post vacation blues were a challenge. I came down with a mild version of Diana’s cold. I was fortunate – pretty much everyone seems to have ended up sick with something after the cruise.

Waiting to hear details of Ships & Dip V -2009.

My absolute favorite photo from the cruise, taken by Kristen Jacobsen. She titled it Exhilaration. I think Alan's expression, in front of screaming fans, totally sums up the experience:

Day 7: the trip home

6:30am. We curse the sadism of cruises when they start making announcements for debarkation. We get ready and go for breakfast – what are they going to do if we miss our group number? Make us stay on the ship? Stay for the Mayercraft Carrier [John Mayer cruise]?

Tediously collect luggage, go through customs, and make our way to the airport. Checking in for our flight is even more disorganized. I’m convinced that I will never see my luggage again. There’s a long line at security, so we buy water to drink while waiting. They won’t let us in the line with our water bottles – even though we tell him that we plan to drink it and throw away the bottle in that trash can, up there by the metal detectors. Lucky we arrived very early since the whole process takes much longer than normal.

We hang out at our gate. We meet Lavonne again – she’s on the same flight to St. Louis.

Airport staff ask us if we’d like to fill out a survey. We grin and say yes. It’s about the food options in that concourse. We write a page of comments that begins with “As frequent travelers, we can state that you have much larger problems than your food selection…”

Once in St. Louis, we learn that we’ve lucked out, and that our plan of avoiding O’Hare was sound – it snowed yesterday, but is okay now, whereas Chicago is snowbound.

We meet some more dippers. Kristen is in our row once we board, so we chat some more. I admire her camera and photos on it. It turns out that she was right behind me at two of the GBS shows. I’ve ended up printing many of her photos because they’re better than mine, yet very similar.

Day 6: BNL show, jam session

We dash to the BNL show. (Mary reports that it started late, so we really only missed a couple of songs.) In spite of our lousy seats way in the back, behind a pillar, it’s also a fun show. Great music, much goofing off on stage. The announcement of Ships & Dip V (yes 5, not 4) is of course the most important moment.

The phrase of the evening, started by Tyler: "You never know what's going to happen on the cruise-ah."

The show goes on until well after 1:00am. Then the party moves to the lido stage for the all night jam session. I watch until about 3:00am (when I thought it started sounding like a bunch of drunks instead of musicians); Diana lasted another hour until the end.

Someone's video of If I had a Million Dollars from the BNL show, (kind of long because they keep pausing to thank musicians and crew):

Day 6: Great Big Gaelic Leaf

As we approached the end of the set, and some folks have started leaving in order to get their seat for the 11:00 BNL show, Alan comments that “We’re supposed to finish up at 11:00.” We cry out “no!” Alan responds, “But wait…Gaelic Storm is playing down in the Aortic until 11:30. What do you say we go join them?” We cheer agreement.

Diana and I look at each other and grin – I guess we’re going to be late for the BNL show.

True to his word, as the last note of Rant & Roar fades, Alan says, “To the other show.” They take off. We follow. Some girls near us say something like “they’re not really going, they’re just trying to get out of signing autographs.” Huh? Clearly they haven’t been on the same cruise as us all week… We just tell them to get out of our way. It’s a mad dash from Deck 9 forward to 5 aft. Hopefully no innocent bystanders were injured. They were definitely perplexed. (At this point, the unexpected was the norm. If I’d been standing around, I’d’ve followed just to find out what was happening.)

We work our way through the crowd in the aortic lounge (really the Adriatic Seas Lounge, but it was immediately known as the Aortic). We could see the word being passed amongst the members of Gaelic Storm. After a few songs, Patrick announces that they have guests for the final song. GBS and CL join them on stage – 15 guys on one tiny stage. Patrick and Sean take the lead in a rousing version of Tell Me Ma. It’s an absolutely amazing experience – we’re jumping and cheering; they all have big grins. What a rush.

The band is now known as Great Big Gaelic Leaf or Great Big Carbon Storm

But the evening still isn’t done…

Day 6: GBS #3

We deliberately chose a spot a little further back along one of the railings, so we could see the entire stage better. “We” being me and Diana; Mary again chose a spot safely distant from all us nuts for her concert viewing.

Music was great, again. Alan was in especially high spirits – at one point Sean commented on it, and asked for a loan. Having seen Sean fairly drunk relatively early the previous evening, I laughed when he said, “I feel like I’ve had a drink with everyone of you last night.” We cheer. He says, “No, I really feel that way.” Oh, I think he’s referring to the hangover…

Musically treat for the evening was finally getting to hear Process Man live. Now I know why people were requesting it – the a capella harmonies are amazing.

For General Taylor, Carbon Leaf and Griffin House joined the boys on stage. They joined in on the singing, and Barry dramatically timed Sean’s long note at the end.