2009 USA Tour : March 22nd, Tulsa OK

Heading for Route 66

Last year Claire and I had followed much of the tail ends of Route 66 from both the LA and Chicago end, without planning, and this year, again without planning, we were about to cover much of the rest of it.

However, we could not resist further indulgence of travelling the winding A to Z roads of rural Missouri with their beautiful forests and small farms on this warm sunny day, before being glued to the hypnotic flow of the freeway out of Missouri and into Oklahoma, now largely built over the old route 66 and bypassing the towns along the way.

Into Tulsa OK

The five hour drive was one of our shortest today enabling us to arrive and book into our RV campsite and pop along to the gig in about 5 hours, I think. Our Sat-Nav GPS was very reliable at getting us to the Mingo camp site and to The Collective, our venue for this evening.  

Mingo RV park was very professional and run by 3 people who seem to constantly argue and disagree in a fun rather than aggressive way, if you imagine that. What was neat in this park was that each RV site had its own private fencing to greatly reduce any disturbance. The laundry facilities were superb and turned out to be very, very useful

The Collective

And yet another very different gig and audience. We are loving this, the extremes of venues and people.

Hosted by Paula Marshall and Colleen McCarthy we had a ball on this Sunday afternoon. The Collective is truly a student and arts attracting venue. It reminded me a lot of the gathering and look at the cinema my daughter Ivy works at in Wanaka New Zealand.  The events and activities they host are extremely imaginative and provide like a constant mini-fringe festival.

As we arrived several students were present with their laptops engaging in their studies while enjoying some of the gourmet delights of The Collective kitchen.

The performance area of The Collective is quite a sizeable stage along with appropriate PA system for the venue. The PA man very quickly made his presence and swiftly set up the stage for our activities.

We got going with out performance around 5:00 pm to a smallish, 20 to 25 people, but very welcoming and grateful audience.

Claire performed

Sitting In A Green Field

Dedication

Fields of Fasseroe

Brigit’s Song

Suil A Ruin

Salley Gardens

Wild Mountain Thyme

Symbolic

Cockles And Mussels

Ard Ti Cuain

Carolan’s Concerto

Star Of The County Down

Flower Of Maherally

A harp teacher and one of her students were there and also performed, student performing a beautiful O’Carolan’s Paddy Power and here teacher performed a classical piece beautifully, but I did not recognise it.

After the show it was wonderful to meet up with so many faces I have seen on Facebook for some time and never met such as Sherry Clark, who’s brother in Denver recommended she popped along to see us. Those who had not joined me on Facebook quickly sent in friend’s requests that evening, including the students working away on a corner table who actually bought several cds, quite an honour.

This event was also partially a birthday celebration for Paula’s mother,  Colleen’s grandmother, who had just turned 93 years old, a delightful active lady.

Last but not least of this day was Paula presenting Claire and I with a copy of her latest book, “Sometimes Being A CEO Looks Pretty Tuff”, which we later learned included long humbling and complementary tracts of how her visit to Ireland, on one of our tours had changed her life. This includes a lovely flowing description of Claire’s performance on that tour. Not sure where the book is available at present.

Our social time went way into late evening, a wonderful, wonderful time.