Last year I adored the Maryland Faerie Festival. It was a magical event with the fey out in force, wishing trees, a unicorn… this year I got to see very little of it. With temperatures pegging 110 degrees both Saturday and Sunday, the weather alone was reason enough to just want to curl up and die. Unfortunately, it wasn’t alone.
A weird kind of Love between Shane’s cat and my case in Philadelphia, PA. This strange Love kept us up alllll night.
I don’t know if it was different management this year or what… but it seemed like everything that could’ve gone wrong did – from sound to schedule organization to equipment failures and the fact that they didn’t know what “phantom power” was. Thank Oberon that Mog eventually showed up for our second set and got things straightened out.
Pouring sweat, heart-racing from heat-exhaustion, we played two sets on Saturday and a third on Sunday. Saturday night we actually even closed out the festival because a thunderstorm raced in on top of us as we were wrapping up our set.
We noticed the audience kept glancing past us, up to the sky and pointing. A wall of black clouds was rolling in towards the fairgrounds, huge monstrous things, bellies full of flashing light – throwing dark shadows all over, light worthy of the Ghostbusters. We were the last act to play, the rest of the festival was cancelled and we escaped just ahead of the storm. (how many times have we done that?)
I felt bad for the Gypsy Nomads as they’d actually managed to set all their gear up and everything and were ready to launch into their awesomeness when the powers-that-be decided to shut things down. SO much for that “rain or shine” clause in our contract, I guess.
I’ve NEVER seen lightning like that – as Rowan and I were driving back home spirals and fingers and traceries all across the western horizon – some fierce, some faint behind layers and layers of tracing paper clouds. I’ve never seen curlicues before! I didn’t even think that was possible!
We made it home sans a drop of rain striking us and the Nomads came with us shortly after, glad to be offered a bed and showers. We do what we can for other artists and our karma…
Somedays though, the only thing that keeps me going is the thought “but it’s going to make a good story in the Journal”.
