Being in a busy function band such as Flipside, we play in such a wide variety of interesting places. Sometimes, of course, it’s just a rectangular hotel ballroom, but here in New England we have a wide range of historic mansions, cool old hotels and art spaces. A few weeks ago, we played at the Hotel Viking in Newport- where Bob Dylan stayed when he went electric at the folk fest in 1965. How cool is that? I put on some dark Raybans and unleashed a rendition of “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” in Bob’s honor.

This past weekend, we travelled to deepest, darkest Vermont- almost 4 hours away through covered bridges and surrounded by quaintness on all sides- to play at a very cool old barn in Waitstaff.  Check out http://www.theroundbarn.com/

We were there to play at the wedding of two lovely characters named Merritt and Lauren who hail from the Philadelphia region. In fact, being a Pennsylvania boy myself, I was was most surprised to learn that 90% of the guests came form within 20 minutes of the small farm town where I grew up. Truth be told, this was not my first time working in a barn. The barn was absolutely beautiful- such gorgeous old wood- and one could actually pull right in to unload equipment.

I have been taking my little flip video camera along to document some of the interesting things we see. Of course, I have to play as well, so it’s usually just propped up next to my amp, but I’m glad I captured a little bit of how special this wedding turned out. It was a really nice opportunity to stretch out from the obvious repertoire that gets requested at a lot of weddings. The barn setting and time of year made things like everybody dancing to “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young extra special and I ended up playing a lot of acoustic guitar. I played the cocktail hour and was able to fit in some Hall & Oates in honor of my Pennsylvania homies. There were all so graciously responsive and sang along, clapped after songs, helped out on tamborine and had some great requests.

It was also a fairly young crowd, so we got ‘em hopping with songs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Usher as well as a mix of classic soul, Journey, Tom Petty and some 80’s treats- there was some dust and debris rattling out of the hay loft for sure.