Getting some Dad time with Sierra before leaving for the day.
The day after Canada Day is usually one reserved for nursing a hangover but this year it was a time for celebration…my cousin Shawn was celebrating his marriage to Erin up in Perth, ON.
After hanging out with Anne-Marie, Evan, Vero and Sierra for the morning, I packed up my gear and hit the road. I wasn’t sure what the dress code was for this particular event as it was a celebration after the wedding in Saskatchewan. I figured I would play it safe with shirt, no tie. That looks relaxed enough. Turns out it was full blown casual and I could have shown up in my bathing suit and people would have accepted me!
With my Pearl Jam Live at the Gorge box set in the car, I hit the road. It was a great afternoon for a drive to Perth and I have to say that the 2005/6 tour of Pearl Jam is one of my faves to listen to…probably because I really like their Avocado album.
The Perth Plaza was a great motel to stay at. A good indication of a great wedding is when the entire motel is booked by wedding guests! I met up with Uncle Johnny and Aunt Aggie, had a non-Keith’s beer (I still can’t believe my eyes when I see that Uncle Johnny has moved away from Keith’s!) hung around a bit more and then got a ride over to the curling club from Stephanie the Uber driver.
The curling club was a great spot for a celebration. They had the bar and music upstairs and they had an area downstairs for a photo booth and just a general area to escape the masses upstairs. I had a good chuckle when Shawn mentioned how hard it was to chat with everyone as Audrey was running around the place. It was a glimpse into my own future, no doubt!
I met a lot of Gaspesians that night, most of which I would need a family tree to figure out how they all fit into the picture…but one thing was for sure, we were there to celebrate the union of Shawn and Erin as well as a surprise 39th wedding celebration of Lynn and Sue. I would like to say that the Gaspe crowd cleared the bar out of all alcohol but someone must have tipped them off that there was going to be a big crowd coming so they had a well stocked fridge. However near the end of the night my common request was just ‘a cold beer’ because they couldn’t keep up with the demand of Keiths!
I was digging this little thing happening with Uncle Johnny’s hair. Reminded me of my own cowlick.
I met Jack and Nancy who were providing the musical entertainment for the night. Jack had a really interesting set up that I was chatting to him about later on in the night. He had the mic/PA/acoustic guitar, but he also had a backing track to play along to! This really intrigued me and I definitely could see the benefit of having something like this for a dance. Everyone likes a good rhythm section (drum and bass) for dancing, whereas the acoustic guitar really has to get going for people to get up and dance to. So he found karaoke tracks for tunes from the Beatles, CCR, The Stones, etc. and plays that while sings and strums over top of them. I also took a look at my own OnSong app (best app ever) on my iPad and sure enough, I can add a musical track to any song in my music library. I also found some websites that offer up backing tracks where people have recreated a Beatles tune using their own instruments. Perhaps this is a way around the musical copyright issues that would come if you actually used a karaoke version in a professional sense. Anyhow, I’m going to play around with this and maybe I will try it out at the next Ajax party. I’m not sure if backing tracks would be a hit or a miss. There’s something lovely about just three acoustics going at it, but when it’s just me playing, it would definitely be a bonus if there could be some lead guitar playing.
Winners of the good looking duo award at the wedding.
Definitely an end of the night picture!
I did manage to meet Erin who is a lovely person to chat with. I also witnessed a very smart girl named Audrey. She wanted to sit on a stool near the photo booth area so I followed her into another room and she must have seen a stool in there before so she dragged it out into the photo booth area. Amazing! I wouldn’t have even known there was a stool stored in this other room! It’s really interesting to see how smart kids can be.
Considering the party had started around 3PM, it wasn’t a surprise that the party started winding down around 10pm. Stephanie the Uber driver graciously drove us back to the Plaza where we immediately bee-lined it across the street to get some McDonald’s food in us and then we all hung out in the parking lot for a few hours. I took full advantage of having a hotel room to myself and slept in quite well the next morning!
As always, it’s great to get together with the family and it was a great celebration put together at the Perth Curling club. Special thanks to all who were involved in the logistics of putting it together!