Dezdmona wrote:There's no way I can be there, but my Father is from this area, so I'd love to see any of the pix, etc... that ends up being posted about this event.
I've lived north of Chicago my entire life, and I had never been to Iowa before Saturday... but BOY am I glad I went!!!
It was pretty bizarre loading the Baileys, waters, mudslides, beer, and ice in to the cooler at 8am, while enjoying the two-degree actual temp in the driveway!
![[smilie=shake.gif]](./images/smilies/shake.gif "shake")
My hands got wet moving the waters to one side, causing a couple cans of beer to stick briefly to them when I went to put them in!
Not quite the same as loading up for a summer tailgate!
I picked up a BG-sicle from Midway Airport and away we went on our road trip... a most excellent adventure!
Davenport looked like it would be beautiful in warm weather, but we didn't do too much exploring in the single digits! Seeing a frozen-over Mississippi River was pretty spectacular, and indication enough to get inside!
First stop was the
Quad Cities Parrot Head Club pre-party a couple blocks down from the host hotel... BG wanted to call a cab, but I managed to get her to put her fur-lined full length coat to the test and walk there!
I'm pretty sure some parts of her just froze and fell off, but she made it alive.
We got Garry hugs almost immediately, got doctoes hugs, and welcoming hugs from Christie, the club president, who TOTALLY ROCKS!! They had a nice spread of food, inexpensive cold beer and cocktails, and local musicians playing familiar tunes with the Coral Reefer guests. Nadirah and Mr Utley were quite surprised to see BG there, and delivered hugs as well.
They talked about making snow angels and snowmen together, but that somehow didn't happen... not sure why!
During a break in the music, one of the guitarists walked by on his way out to a gig, and said something to us like "I cannot believe I just played 'A Pirate Looks at 40' with Amy Lee on the saxophone! I was so nervous! All of these years of playing it, but I didn't want to screw it up!" He was quite thrilled and honored to share the stage with all of them. How cool of the QCPHC to be able to make that happen for some of their local talent!
While Nadirah, Mr Utley, Doyle, and Amy Lee were all up there just rocking the house with the house band, I told Christie that they sure know how to throw a helluva party... she laughed and replied that the party hadn't even started yet! Well, good point, so I changed it to they know how to throw a helluva a pre-party!
When we returned to our room, there was a nice surprise goody bag waiting for us from the QCPHC, including everything we needed to know about all of the events, and discounts that they had arranged. Super cool, and props to the goody bag committee!
Cindi had only slept about 20 minutes since 9am Friday, and there was a bit of time between the pre-party and party, so while she napped, I strolled over to check out the party room... holy crap!! A nice big stage, a nice big dance floor, lots of tables, food and drink vendors, silent auctions, a 50/50 raffle, merchandise for sale, and photo-op spot. And there's probably stuff that I missed.
We headed on over a little after 8, and saw mjeischen with his "tailgate in a bag" party favors!
He was big excited to be there, and bummed that his group was ready to go before it ended.
The Boat Drunks sounded great as usual... they're pretty spot-on when it comes to Buffett songs, and their own songs are crowd favorites too. Jake's voice really resembles Jimmy's quite a bit, and the band rocks... Larry Lister on drums, Andy Gaines on keyboards, Howie Golub on harmonica and percussion, Dyke Corson on guitar, and Aaron Walk on bass. And of course you can always tell that manager Todd Lindsey puts a lot of care and effort into his job and keeping things running smoothly.
Nadirah, Mr Utley, Amy Lee, and Doyle joined them for the 2nd and 3rd sets, and they mixed in most of the songs from Nadirah's "Nod to the Storyteller". A couple of the special gems among gems to me were "Give Henry the Receipt" and "Why You Wanna Hurt My Heart" and "Frenchman For The Night" and etc etc etc!
Nadirah's performances are just simply amazing to me!
They showcased the Reefers quite a bit as well... it's always such a pleasure to see Mr Utley's smiling face and listen to his fingers dancing across that keyboard. Hearing Amy Lee on the saxophone again was a real TREAT! She absolutely wails, and is absolutely stunning! And another highlight that I had never seen before was when they featured Doyle on the instrumental "Sleep Walk"! Pretty damn cool!
I took some pictures during the show, but it didn't look like they were coming out very good, and I put my camera away before getting "keepers" of Doyle or Mr Utley. But I'll share a few I did get:
I didn't see Christie afterward to tell her that they sure know how to throw a helluva party!!
But Cindi and I made a point to tell everyone we identified as QCPHC members what an excellent job they did with Havana Daydreamin' 2009, and we hope to go back again next year! It seems to be a really great group of pholks, and a very caring phamily.
Man, what an excellent adventure, with some extra special memories and momento's that we will treasure forever!
tap tap, tap tap tap... tap tap!
Thank you to everyone who put big smiles on our faces!!
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