When Bruce Cockburn comes to the Mateel Community Center I am elated. This is my community and my backyard, or living room — how ever you want to look at that. This is exciting in so many ways.. being able to experience Bruce with a lot of friends and fans makes it all that more enjoyable and uplifting.. and he rocked and swooned the Mateel Hall and held us in his hands like putty for the whole show.
What makes this an even more special event for me, was Bruce and I were able to sit and talk with each other for a couple of hours. How lovely that was, and how gracious of him to spend a little time with me. My heart soars.
We arrived early enough to catch up with Kathy & Riley from Arcata, and a bit later with Russ & Jan, & then so many locals. Taun being at her first ever Bruce show, and Dian, Kate, Brian, Margriet, Alicia, Lily, Liz & Charlie… I would really have to name at least half the folks in the hall. But that made it so much more fun.
I am not going to go into every song, suffice it to say it was an excellent Setlist. Agnes Patak – Mateel Photo set was there taking incredible photos so I mostly let my camera sit until the after show meet & greet.
So many people were taking so many photos at the meet & greet signing that I haven’t even seen them all yet.
But what follows were taken by me or Russel or Jan.. and is a fun way to wrap up what a wonderful night it was for all.
We made the trek down to Santa Cruz to see Bruce on Friday July 12 at the Rio Theatre. It’s a good 7 hour drive from here without stops.. good thing we went a day early so we had some energy recovery time!
We cruised by the Rio on Friday afternoon to check it out.
I was hoping to catch sound check, but that didn’t happen. I did talk to Russ Cole, who did sound for Bruce, who said he did a very long sound check.
It was a sunny bright day in Santa Cruz and I was very excited to see Bruce as it has been 14 months since the last time at the Van Duzer Theater.
Look How Far:
We were told by someone inside to come back at 6pm for will call, so of course we got there even earlier to find out that Will Call wasn’t until 7pm! So there was one line for General Admission and one line for Gold Circle (first 15 rows) and most everyone in those lines had to also get in the will call line to get the actual tickets.. quite a little tense fiasco by the time the doors got open. But I love talking to fans in line, meeting new people, re-meeting others from meets at other shows, and of course connecting with good friends, like Riley and Kathy (who we first met at the Arcata Theater Lounge show. And Paul from the 2002 Kate Wolf Festival.
There were a few surprises in the setlist this time around,
and Russel snagged the original and had Bruce sign it after the show.
There is always so much energy at these shows, the banter back and forth with the crowd.. the calling of songs to be played, often with Bruce commenting on them. Someone asked for Tropic Moon, he said, “that’s a good song and I don’t think I have ever had anyone ask for it” (paraphrased). Someone also asked for Lord of the Starfields, which I believe he said ‘was a great song and very close to his heart, but now he was not going to play that one now’.
Here is something that he did play though: When You Give It Away
Bruce also did a meet and greet and signage after the show. The line was long and Bruce was visibly tired, but he graciously signed and spoke with his adoring fans.
Once again I had the photo from the last time we met and he signed it for me. We chatted for a couple of seconds, he said he had thought he would see me at the Grass Valley show, and I said I had planned to go there, but when the chance of guaranteed close to the stage seating was offered with the Rio show, how could I refuse? He said, “I hear you on that” and we laughed.. older bodies, ya know??
I knew he was driving back to San Fransisco that evening and leaving the next day for Grass Valley for his WorldFest gig on Sunday the 14th at around 6pm.. (3 hours from now as I write this wishing I could be there as well), so I threw him a heart kiss and we left.
I didn’t get a photo of us taken this time, so I guess the run of signing photos from past shows is over, but it was a good run. One day I will gather them all and make another blog post about that.
Here’s the lettuce bed in April, it is now covered with a shade cloth tent over all of it.. we should have salads till October is all goes well..or even longer.
Blue Columbine in April, thank you Hand to Land for this columbine! I have several now, this is the biggest.
My red poppies usually don’t start opening (popping !) until June! And here they start on May 2!!!
I feel the ‘hurry up and get the rest of the garden in’ energy happening right now.
In June of 1986, when I was in my early 30′s, my Mom passed away after a long battle with cancer.
Shortly after that I received a bit of money and as I already had the travel bug, took it as a sign to go to South America.
I had friends in Argentina, so I landed there and spend some time in Buenos Aires then traveled north up to the Misiones district and to the Falls Iguassu, which border both Argentina and Brazil. Continue reading →
In June of 1986, when I was in my early 30’s, my Mom passed away after a long battle with cancer.
Shortly after that I received a bit of money and as I already had the travel bug, took it as a sign to go to South America.
I had friends in Argentina, so I landed there and spend some time in Buenos Aires then traveled north up to the Misiones district
and to the Falls Iguassu, which border both Argentina and Brazil.
We then took a train into Paraquay and then flew into Bolivia.
We spent a month traveling all around Bolivia. I fell in love with the mountains and textiles, I brought home many.
We also visited the Valley of the Moon, Lake Titicaca, and the city of Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco) which was the capital of a powerful pre-Inca civilization.
I am developing a new, for this blog, photo gallery set up.
It is still a bit clunky, in that I have to do too much cross posting, but I will figure it out eventually.
In June of 1986, when I was in my early 30’s, my Mom passed away after a long battle with cancer.
Shortly after that I received a bit of money and as I already had the travel bug, took it as a sign to go to South America.
I had friends in Argentina, so I landed there and spend some time in Buenos Aires then traveled north up to the Misiones district and to the Falls Iguassu, which border both Argentina and Brazil.
Snow
First snow 18 December 2012
First snow of the winter season.
More Galleries will be coming here soon. I do have a few other photo galleries on one of my other websites, you can see them HERE.
