Interesting tablemate Thursday night

We went to see Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky Thursday night at the Birchmere. We were late getting there, got a late start that wasn’t helped by Illa relieving himself in the upstairs hallway (forgot to ask Lezlie about that when we saw her Saturday). We thought we’d be late for Lucy (one of Jill’s faves), but they switched and Richard opened, and he was on his second song when we walked in. Good show (they played together several times), but we had an interesting tablemate – Robbie from efo! Jill wanted to go in on the stage right side, but I like sitting on the stage left side (my right ear isn’t as fond of high volume, so that puts my left ear towards the speakers). Jill noticed Robbie as he turned around, sees us, and waves us over to his table. He was sitting by himself in the back because he’d been backstage ’til right before the show. Turns out Robbie’s a huge fan of them both, and when we chatted during intermission, it was a weird mix of him talking about how great they were, and I was asking some efo questions (a fanboy chain).

Julie just posted to the band journal what’s been going on with her lately, but he confirmed this has been a rough week for her. They’re booking some dates for next year, but they’re trying to be flexible for Julie (the next Alexandria and Annapolis shows are on sale, I bought tix for the Saturday shows both places). The rest of them are busy on side projects (Mike’s doing a solo CD, Robbie’s doing a CD of the kids songs he’s performed and written, and Eddie’s got Brother Shamus shows). He said FRFF is a possibility. He said some more about touring, but I’m not sure if some of it’s for public discussion. It was nice since he was the one band member we didn’t get to chat to on the cruise, and some of the questions were things you don’t want to ask when you’re both on vacation – the real world intrudes soon enough.