At last night’s show during Family Friendly Friday at the Top Hat Lounge in Missoula, Montana, the Sand Family Band rocked so hard that we were nearly booted us off stage…twice. Toward the end of our first set, as in all our shows, we brought out bags of instruments — drums, shakers, tambourines — for the frenetically dancing families in the audience to use to become our percussion corps for the Indonesian kids’ song, “Gili Gio.” The kids loved the instruments! The grown-ups dining and drinking in other parts of the Top Hat…maybe not as much. The manager kindly told us we were too loud and had to tune down the revelry. ROCK ON SAND FAMILY (strike 1). During the second part of the show, my solo set, I called a few audience members up onto stage and gave them shakers to support me on a tune. The manager returned to kindly say no way Sand Family, keep the kiddos in their place. ROCK ON SAND FAMILY (strike 2). Later the Sand Family committed the greatest sin of all by taking too long to pack up our instruments and move out of the parking spot in the stage load-in zone so the next band could move in, causing no shortage of chagrin. CHAGRIN, I tell you. (Rock on, Sand Family, strike three!)
Note: We met the Dodgy Mountain Men. We don’t want to undermine their carefully crafted persona, but they seemed nice.
