Edinburgh Day 13 (8/10)
Today’s big adventure was our early afternoon set at a famous folk/bluegrass bar in town, Sandy Bell’s!
But first, to prep for that hour long time slot, several of us from the cast house got going early to meet up with the band at their place to go over some of the tunes we’d planned on doing. Given the amount of time we had, not only were we going to be doing extended versions of songs from the show, but we’d also likely do some additional bluegrass classics and fiddle tunes. We ran through some of those in the band’s living room, then climbed aboard a bus to head into Old Town to the pub. When we arrived, some of us were a bit concerned. The place was pretty quiet (it was early afternoon on a Saturday, so maybe not *that* surprising) and the crowd, who all seemed like regulars, seemed similarly skeptical of us. We walked to an alcove in the back of the bar and got set up, tuning up and making space for the now arriving rest of the cast. Once we were settled in, and the clocked ticked over to 1pm, we kicked into our first song, an uptempo bluegrass standard that isn’t part of our show, called Nine Pound Hammer.
Fortunately the crowd grew in energy and number once we started playing, and by the time we were wrapping up our time we were playing to a fairly raucous and full bar. I think we all counted it as a big success!
Once the bar gig ended, folks scattered to various things. I headed back to the house to sneak in a workout and run some quick errands before heading into town to see a show, and then do our show. Unfortunately, as I realized when I got to (what I thought was) the venue for the 6pm show I had a ticket for, I found out it was actually playing at a venue a 25 minute walk away - I had somehow mixed up Assembly @ George Square with Assembly at George Street, and even if I had gotten the venue right, I’d never have been able to make it from that show to ours in time for call. Feeling kinda dumb I walked back up the block to our venue, to read and kill the time remaining before we went on.
This was going to be our last performance with our current fiddle player, so I’m glad she got sent off with a good performance and our largest house thus far (~30-40 folks), after which I joined the band at a bar for a drink and a meal before wishing them goodnight.
Tomorrow, a day off!
