Singing for Burns Night

I’m still waiting for the Whiskey Rep to post the picture of me playing for the Burns Night Whiskey Club to Facebook. If it ever shows I’ll post it. It ended up being a great night. Dave made his Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties special for Burns night, so we started off the evening with that for dinner. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned how amazing Dave’s food is, I probably have. He’s a chef, and, I mean, the pub food he makes is great, but it’s just that, pub food, and mostly fried. He really shines when he makes proper food. His prime rib on Friday nights has to be the best on the CT Shoreline. That and his soups, his soups are to die for. Dave is a dangerous friend to have. He supplies you with amazing food and plenty of alcohol, so he’s the kind of friend that can easily keep you quite fat and happy if you aren’t careful. 🙂

Anyway, the Whiskey club was really receptive to me playing last night. Of course, they all know me since I’m a member. It went really, really well, and at the end of the night Dave said that by doing it I really raised awareness for the holiday. People were asking a lot of questions about who Robert Burns was and were even ordering the Haggis special because of it. He thanked me sincerely at the end of the night. Then, when I went to pay my bill I found out that not only was my tab on him, but my husband’s was too!

It’s always weird singing very Scottish songs around Dave. Robert Burns wrote everything in Broad Scots. I’m not Scottish, aside from in my family history. I was born and raised in Oklahoma, so it’s weird to be up there singing in Broad Scots with my American Accent. There’s this like paranoia that it’s going to sound weird or whatever, especially to Dave, who is as Scottish as they come, having been born and raised in Glasgow. At least I know my pronunciations so I’m not up there butchering it or anything, that would be really embarrassing.

I did get to try all of the Whiskies. I was drooling over them before we got started and Dave promised to save me some. At the end each person can have another extra sample of their favorite one, so as he was going around pouring those he poured each one for me as well. Since it was kind of rushed I was fairly well lit when I played my last two songs. 🙂

Anyway, I was really pleased with how the night went. At the end of the night we were sitting around and Dave handed me a guitar he got to raffle off in a fundraiser this coming Saturday. He apparently forgot he already showed it to me a week ago. But I played it a bit again, then when it got quiet in the pub Dave started testing me a little, calling out the chords to one of the songs he taught me and seeing if I could remember how it went. He hasn’t been able to give me a guitar lesson in months due to how busy the pub has gotten. Sucks, but I’m to the point now where I can kind of keep learning things on my own, so it’s not really a big deal. He got me started and he’s giving me a place to perform, so who can complain? Right?

Anyway, I need to work on putting together my setlist for tomorrow. Have a good weekend, everyone! Oh, and a hearty congratulations on the official re-launch, to the Diarymaster!!