Finally An FilkOntario Report of sorts
So, since I've been getting encouragement to start posting my own stuff rather than just responding in other people's LJs, I'm going to try and comply.
FKO was wonderful as usual, and it was a very welcome change from an intense week at work.
All I can do is echo all the nice things that everyone else said about the concerts by Heather Dale, Urban Tapestry, vixy and Tony, Bill & Gretchen Roper, the Beldlam Bards, and others I've left out. As usual, I was sat (or sometimes paced) through all of the concerts. I did miss both song contests this year. I hated doing that because I generally enjoy hearing what people have come up with, but both times, I found myself desperately in need of a little down time and went up to my room for a bit.
Friday night after the concerts, I wound up in the room doing bardic. It was a small circle, never really getting above 8, so the rotation around the circle was pretty quick. I sang more songs that night than I usually do all con. We started out using a the "Song Sequitur" format where each song must be a follower to the previous song, but you can't use the same method of following twice in a row and then went to standard bardic. One of the people in the circle was Steve Savitzky, which was nice because I don't think I'd ever heard him in person before. Personally, I like the bardic circle format because I find that people seem to dig a little deeper into their repertoire where as with chaos people often seem to fall into a pattern of standard followers.
Saturday night, I spent way too much money at the Interfilk auction on a one of kind songbook that goes with vixy and Tony's CD. Then I settled down in the back corner of the room with the celtic session and listened to a lot of great music while I caught up on my reading for class. One of these years, I will show up at FKO without needing to do stuff for class or stuff for work.
By the time the dead dog rolled around on Sunday I was once again happy to just zone out in a corner and listen.
For me, the best thing about FKO this year was the reaction of one of my college friends. D has lived in Toronto for a number of years and every time I come up for FKO, I drop him and his wife an note and try to set aside some time for a visit. This year, D replies "Actually, I was thinking about joining you at the con for a few hours." That was completely out of the blue. We've known each other for almost 30 years. He's heard me sing some filk; he's heard some the recordings in my collection; he has never shown any particular interest. D did indeed show up Saturday afternoon and was there for most of major concerts and several sets of one shots. He was completely wowed by vixie and Tony and seemed to really enjoy everyone's performances. It's unlikely that his first FKO will be his last.
FKO was wonderful as usual, and it was a very welcome change from an intense week at work.
All I can do is echo all the nice things that everyone else said about the concerts by Heather Dale, Urban Tapestry, vixy and Tony, Bill & Gretchen Roper, the Beldlam Bards, and others I've left out. As usual, I was sat (or sometimes paced) through all of the concerts. I did miss both song contests this year. I hated doing that because I generally enjoy hearing what people have come up with, but both times, I found myself desperately in need of a little down time and went up to my room for a bit.
Friday night after the concerts, I wound up in the room doing bardic. It was a small circle, never really getting above 8, so the rotation around the circle was pretty quick. I sang more songs that night than I usually do all con. We started out using a the "Song Sequitur" format where each song must be a follower to the previous song, but you can't use the same method of following twice in a row and then went to standard bardic. One of the people in the circle was Steve Savitzky, which was nice because I don't think I'd ever heard him in person before. Personally, I like the bardic circle format because I find that people seem to dig a little deeper into their repertoire where as with chaos people often seem to fall into a pattern of standard followers.
Saturday night, I spent way too much money at the Interfilk auction on a one of kind songbook that goes with vixy and Tony's CD. Then I settled down in the back corner of the room with the celtic session and listened to a lot of great music while I caught up on my reading for class. One of these years, I will show up at FKO without needing to do stuff for class or stuff for work.
By the time the dead dog rolled around on Sunday I was once again happy to just zone out in a corner and listen.
For me, the best thing about FKO this year was the reaction of one of my college friends. D has lived in Toronto for a number of years and every time I come up for FKO, I drop him and his wife an note and try to set aside some time for a visit. This year, D replies "Actually, I was thinking about joining you at the con for a few hours." That was completely out of the blue. We've known each other for almost 30 years. He's heard me sing some filk; he's heard some the recordings in my collection; he has never shown any particular interest. D did indeed show up Saturday afternoon and was there for most of major concerts and several sets of one shots. He was completely wowed by vixie and Tony and seemed to really enjoy everyone's performances. It's unlikely that his first FKO will be his last.