Picnic music: Rob Quist

Tonight was the last Picnic in the Park concert of the year. It was an excellent concert. Rob Quist is a local musician but it always seemed like something came up when he performed each year and I missed his appearances.

The music was to be by Rob Quist and Great Northern. I got there after the concert started so I didn't hear the introduction, but during the concert Rob mentioned the man and woman on electric guitars were his son (Guthrie) and daughter (Halliday). They also played a few songs by White Hawk - his son and daughter's band. No mention was made of Great Northern.

The musicians were very good, both playing their instruments and with their singing as they all had strong voices. They sang songs where they were the lead and on other songs backup. A band that can play and sing an excellent version of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills and Nash has to be strong instrumentally and vocally.

At one point the band played an excellent version of the ACDC song TNT (where the daughter sang lead vocal on a definitely male song) and the next song they immediately played was one that would please the old fogies that listen to the Prairie Home Companion radio show. In fact an old grandpa a short distance in front of me was dancing in his chair to the second song.

While both siblings have strong voices, Halliday sang with more emotion than Guthrie. It showed through in both the heavy metal ACDC song TNT and in the bluesy song Love Me Like A Man that she sang.

Before she sang the second song Rob told a humorous story about his daughter bringing this song home to sing when she was only 16 and wanting to perform it live at his next Christmas Concert. Read the lyrics.

I found Gary during the concert's intermission. It was harder than usual to find him in the crowd both because the crowd was larger tonight and because Gail was sitting on his lap as she didn't seem to have a chair. Gary, Gary... you said after your marriage's end you'd never marry again. Anyway I gave Gary somewhat of a hard time for canceling our hike this week to the top of Mt Henkel. He still wants to do the hike but the window of opportunity is getting smaller for this year.

I also ran into a woman (Me-HIGH-la -- I don't know how it is spelled) that I had met at a several of the contra dances. She has a three year son and he doesn't keep still. Our short talk about contra dancing ended as he wandered off into the crowd.

The concert had power problems just after I arrived so the musicians ended up playing an extra 20 minutes to make up for it. Therefore it was dark when the concert ended and when I rode my bicycle home. It seemed only a short time ago that it was still light outside when I rode home after a concert. My bicycle seemed to make some new creaking noises so I'll have to check it tomorrow when I can see to see if something else cracked or broke.