Branson, Missouri

Our second time back to Branson, Missouri and it seems we brought the Vancouver rain with us. Maybe it will still be raining when we get to Lexington tomorrow and we can all sing along to Elvis’s Kentucky Rain. When Rebecca’s mom heard the Clumsy Lover’s were playing Branson the news was met with the same level of excitement an announcement that we were playing Carnegie Hall would have garnered! There are a lot of notable entertainers that call Branson their home. Like The Presley Family (no relation to Elvis) , The Parton Family (no relation to Dolly) and a Billy Ray Cyrus cover band. O.K. I made the last two up but there are a lot of acts I’ve never heard of interspersed with household names like The Osmond’s and Andy Williams. You know you are getting close to Branson when you start to see the Yakov Smirnoff signs every mile or so. Now he’s the real deal. After all who can say ”What a country!” without picturing his cherub-like face?Waxy O Shea’s is an Irish bar with a nice big stage for the bands to perform. Often times playing an Irish pub is like trying to put on a rock show in the back seat of a Yugo. But tonight we would have the space to stretch out and spin our instruments around a la’ Steve Vai. Nights like tonight we generally do our own sound and we can be unloaded and have the entire P.A. system ready to go in about twenty minutes if we hustle. More time for us to luxuriate and take in the atmosphere. They treat us really well here with food, drinks and accommodation and they do a lot to make the musicians feel welcome. Especially Matt who organizes the music there who calloused his fingers texting all his friends to come down! There was a good energy in the room. Lots of dancing and stomping and whooping and hollering. And the audience was pretty excitable too:) One nice thing about having been around so long is we often see people we haven’t seen for years. I talked to a guy that hadn’t seen us since After the Flood came out in 2004 and here we are in 2009. Five years and two new albums for us and a couple of children in his case. He knew a lot about cigars too. You never know where the conversations going to lead. The point is, we are always happy to see repeat customers. There’s many that have seen the band fifty times. They should receive a commemorative plaque, or at the very least a certificate. People love being certified. I still have my bachelor’s certificate of square dancing that I was proud to be presented with in the spring of 1979. All in all a really swell time and they sent us off into the night with enough bread pudding to feed the Canadian Navy.”