Tomten 09 Goes Down In The Books

Well the first annual event has come and gone. We're officially calling it a success despite the rain (thanks to Kenny and Al for the tent canopy!!) and the keg malfunction (thanks to Knasty who ultimately had the stroke of genius with the air compressor idea and a big thanks to Sid for Frankenstiening the two taps together in an attempt to solve our beer problems).
Though I have to say the obstacles make for good memories.

The crowd numbers were a little disappointing but we have to start somewhere. Next year we should have more bodies once the talk of the Tomten Fest hits the streets.

Music was AWESOME - everybody did an outstanding job - Sav... what a talent - songwriter extrodinare.

The Northermost Pilots were pretty darn tight and sounded great and, if given the rights, have unwittingly penned the Tomten Theme Song. We listened to the recording this morning - didn't catch all the lyrics last night.... freakin' unbelievable... we listened to it like four times... great job.

Sid pulled it out of his ass even under the influence of a few more beers than ideal but he performed wonderful as well. Only have old skool film pics of Sid's set.

And Mark and Tori go down in the books as the first Tomten act ever with their great set of nice harmonies and djimbe-flavored tunes - nice stuff.
Good news is that the recording we did last night turned out pretty darn sweet. Nice balance to everything so after some editing (just to get out all the pauses, drunken Sid talk and the crazy neighbor lady yelling about Edmund Fitzgerald) it should be great. Hopefully we'll have discs ready in a week or so.

We had a great time - just like Bella Boo here... getting lots of attention.
We even finished up the night by pushing Carrie and Kenny's car through the parking lot up to Sid's so we could jump it. Sid almost crushed Kenny's shin between the two cars... wow....

Nice how I took a picture rather than helped push the car eh?

Anyway, again, thanks to all who came and played and drank beer and sat around the fire and camped and put up with the drunken neighbor lady (who I DID NOT invite by the way) and ate DellMarie's excellent food and mixed a cocktail or two and got rained on and got jumped on by a dog or six and chatted with some great folks and sang songs and solved the mystery of the H is Jesus H Christ, and help set up the canopy and helped clean up (THANKS NIC!) and drank enough keg beer to get swamp mouth in the morning... ok, you get the picture. Hope you all come back for Tomten Ten.

And lastly... in some strange way I think this quote, of which was captured during the Pilots' set kind of sums up the whole experience... in a good way of course....
Spoken by Chad Strehlo...
"Can I get some more feedback in monitor two please?"