Friday Favorites 1/20/2012
Years ago … six to be exact … Muri and I used to take a mini-vacation every Valentine’s Day. I’d pick a place that wasn’t to far then search the web for things to do there: museums, concerts, tours … and, of course, restaurants. This all stopped six years ago when our first grandson, Reed, was born on Valentine’s Day and Valentine’s Day became Reed’s Birthday. In fact, the year Reed was born, we were spending the weekend before in a bed and breakfast in Lake Arrowhead, CA. The plan was to drop Muri at the airport Valentines Day morning to be with Amy, with Older Eyes coming on Friday. I was working then and needed to finish some work. A dense fog settled over the mountains that morning, so we had to navigate the windy roads with ten foot visibility, wondering if Muri would make her flight. She did and the rest is history … including our Valentines Day vacations.
The year before Reed was born, we spent a long weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In searching for entertainment for Saturday night, I found a group named Leahy performing at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. I’d never heard of the group, so I navigated to their website to find that Leahy is a Canadian folk group made up entirely of family members from Lakefield, Ontario. The eight member band features fiddle-based music that ranges from traditional jigs and reels to their own folk-rock compositions. All the members play multiple instruments and all step dance as part of their act. We discovered before the show that Leahy had a large following of people who had seen them before and traveled a long way to see them again in Santa Fe. It was simply one of the most enjoyable concerts we’d ever attended, made better by the fact that it was a complete surprise. Since then, we took my daughter and her husband to see them in Chandler, AZ.
Perhaps their signature piece is The Call to the Dance, which features lead fiddle, Donnell Leahy and ends with the entire family step dancing. This is from a concert in Gatineau, Quebec. You can find The Call to the Dance on their album Leahy.
My favorite is a song called Moment which is about living all of life, moment by moment … the way I wish I could live. The lead vocal is by Erin Leahy. I’ve uploaded the recorded version from the album Lakefield because there wasn’t a high-quality version online.
If you ever get a chance to see Leahy in concert, don’t miss them. You can find information on the group and their tour schedule here.
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Tags: entertainment, favorites, Friday Favorites, Leahy, love and marriage, mindfulness, music, music collections, play, smiles
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January 20, 2012 at 10:40 am
We do some kind of travel on Valentine’s Day as well. We also travel to Santa Fe a lot, since it isn’t that far from us. We usually park in the lot across from the Lensic, though we’ve never noticed the shows before. Lucky for you! Santa Fe is a wonderful place, great food, but has had its hits from the down turn.
January 20, 2012 at 1:25 pm
So glad you explore so much of what’s available in the arts around you! It’s such a valuable resource, and clearly you and Muri have always appreciated it and used it to enhance your relationship.
January 21, 2012 at 7:49 am
You should go back to taking time out with Muri.
So good to have quality time with your partner….and it is so romantic.