Notice that's fair without the "e". Don't know why, but I like the fact this festival doesn't use the olde English spelling of the word.

There's a reason why we tend to call this festival our "home fair". It's because of all the fans, friends, and family we have there. Norman was our first "ren faire" to perform at back in 2000 and we always have a blast coming back to the festival and performing in front of the multitude of crazed pumpers and pumpettes that grace our shows. I remember when the festival director first told us back in 2005 that she was going to move us to the back corner of the festival, my initial thought was "crap, now we're going to be lucky to get 15 people to a show", then she told me why she was doing it: to pull people back to that section of the grounds that had been dead since the move to Reaves Park from the Duck Pond. I felt better about it, but was still a bit unsure whether or not we'd be the draw she thought we would. Silly me. Our fans proved my fears to be unfounded as we continually fill the seats and more show after show in the years we've been at that stage. I know that many vendors around that area have told me of their appreciation that us and the chess match are back there, because the amount of people around their shops before and after the shows increases a ton.

This year was doubly special as we were making a return to the festival after taking last year off for the birth of my baby girl and the festival hiring the Jolly Rogers in our place. We were very happy to be back and according to our fans' reactions and welcome backs, they were happy to have us back, too. After missing last year and us no longer performing at Muskogee, it had been a long while for many of the OK fans to get their 'Pumps fix. Couple all this with the fact that we were recording a show to be placed on the new DVD (yes, again), and there was some excitement in the air this year for certain. With the word spreading before the start of the festival and all day Friday, we got a huge crowd on hand for the DVD show Saturday afternoon. At times, the sound guys said the crowd would overpower the mics shouting "MacIntyre" on "Old Dun Cow". Quite the experience, let me tell you. Big bilgy thanks go to our sound guys, Chris and John, and our videographers, John, Josh, Alyssa, Kathy, and to the Tod for the use of his camera.

When you add in the fact that I get to see my family and the whole band gets to see our "extended family" in the form of the Wingnut clan (one of whom was kidnapped by pirates from his school back in 2006), and Celia and Dana's clan (who were kind enough to treat us to a pirate picnic at their house on Friday), no amount of Oklahoma allergy attacks can make us stay away from Norman each April. Though we are still paying for this visit as Squeegy and I are still suffering the after-effects of the sickness. Oh well, you wanna have fun, you gotta pay the price, and the fun is definitely worth it.

Because it's all for me blog. Me jolly jolly blog.
....Maroon