Get On The Bus!!

Today was a bit of a crazy day here in Bowling Green, with reports of armed men entering the south campus of WKU this morning followed by shots fired on the main campus, resulting in an evacuation of the former and a lockdown of the latter...thankfully the worst injury reported was a broken arm suffered by a good samaritan trying to break up the fight, but it was pretty unnerving to be getting phone calls from my dad from inside the school, where he, some of his faculty, and their students were waiting to get word beyond "shots fired, take cover." He's home now, and said it was rather awkwardly boring, just waiting around on high alert, getting nothing done...waste of a day, but at least everyone is safe, and that is, ultimately, the most important thing.
But, this whole thing makes the event I was going to post about anyway seem all the more welcome.

As we've alluded to in the past, one of the great things we've gained by moving here is the opportunity for James to explore new avenues in the musical realm, and last night marked a milestone along that path. James has joined my dad's band, and last night was their first concert!  Dad has dubbed him the "fiddolin" player, and they seem to have a lot of fun, they both come home satisfied after rehearsals, which I can't see as a bad thing.  The rest of us (the girls, haha, since Dad and James are the only boys in our six-person, seven-critter household) were very excited to finally get to hear them play together.

The concert conditions were less than ideal, they were doing this particular gig, entitled "Get On The Bus!," as a favor for some students doing a senior seminar on political activism, (the song list was comprised of tunes composed about or during times of political unrest of one kind or another) and the kids just didn't know the ins and outs of the performance world...the late evening, outdoor concert was hampered a bit by the quickly setting sun, which left things cold, and well, dark, since the lights didn't come on until the encore...at one point, they were playing in pitch darkness!  But they handled it very gracefully, and we were proud of them.  And, now I'd like to share a snippit of it all with you!  Below is just one of the songs, written by John Prine...I'll probably have some more up on youtube later, but for now here's something to whet your appetites.  :-)

Vocals/Guitar - Scott Stroot (dad!)

Vocals/Keyboard - Forest Halford

Vocals - Lisa Van Wye

Bass  - Frank Lawrence

Fiddolin - James Yu