Friday at FKO
OK, LJ has been fighting me as I try to put up this con report and it ate the first part I put up this morning, but let's try again. Maybe if I write it right from here rather than trying to transfer it from Flickr I'll have better luck.
First of all, thanks to Walter for letting me use his photos in these con reports! I didn't take a lot of photos at FKO this year. I was kind of pre-occupied :). All photos are his except a few I'll point out are mine. Please see his entire FKO set here.
This was a particularly special FKO for Deb, Jodi and me, as well as being a great time.
We arrived late afternoon on Friday, ate dinner in the hotel lounge while catching up with a bunch of far-flung friends including Mary Crowell, Ju and Talis. Talis gave us authentic English Afternoon Tea! Which we rebelliously drank in the -morning- the next day :).
The convention hotel hosted a special reception for FKO this year to celebrate the con’s ten year history with the hotel (and three more to come, it’s been announced). There was a huge beautiful cake with the FKO logo on it and lots of snacks and punch and goodies. Very nice!
(photo by me)
During the reception Judith came up to me and gave me a -gorgeous- beaded lanyard that she had made for me for my con badge. It is made of green and gold beads with accent beads of Celtic knots and it is just beautiful. Thank you so much, Judith!
The reception was followed by the Friday night concerts. As is FKO tradition, the first concert up was performed by last year’s conchair, Howard (who also had special FKO moments ahead of him, but very few in the crowd knew that yet :)). It was great to hear some of Howard’s standards and the local crew singing “Canada’s Really Big” was especially fun.
Next up was Sue and Tom as Stone Dragons and hearing them sing is always a treat. Dave Clement joined them on stage, too, as well as Amy McNally on fiddle. Sue and Tom debuted some of their new songs, written as a result of the new songwriter group Tom has started up in Toronto filking. Clearly the group is producing some really good songs, as Tom and Sue proved!
Next up was Mary Crowell on keyboards with the ever wonderful Amy McNally accompanying her on fiddle. I believe it was Mary’s first FKO and it was our gain because she and Amy were amazing! Wonderful songs, great drama and terrific give and take between two musicians that were just in the zone.
Later in the evening UT shared the con suite with Jan DiMasi and Talis Kimberley, as we both held release parties for new filk projects. Jan was selling CDs of Talis’ concert at Duckon last year (Yay, I got one!) and we were selling our new “mockumentary” DVD, hot off the presses. You can find much, much more about our new DVD here and we will put information up soon about how those not able to attend FKO this year can order them! Thanks so much to those who supported us at the release party and bought a DVD! We also had chocolate loonies, Canada pins and space stickers to hand out as freebies to buyers :).
Thanks, too, to Sheryl and Bob Guest, who were running the con suite and very kindly provided an amazing spread of food as well as technical know-how to have our DVD running during the party.
It had been a very long day so by the time we left the release party we were pretty much ready to just go to bed. Jodi and I were also concerned because we were ill with very bad throats that we needed to try to spare for reasons yet to be revealed!
And now I pray to the cyber gods that LJ lets this through this time.
Much more to come.
First of all, thanks to Walter for letting me use his photos in these con reports! I didn't take a lot of photos at FKO this year. I was kind of pre-occupied :). All photos are his except a few I'll point out are mine. Please see his entire FKO set here.
This was a particularly special FKO for Deb, Jodi and me, as well as being a great time.
We arrived late afternoon on Friday, ate dinner in the hotel lounge while catching up with a bunch of far-flung friends including Mary Crowell, Ju and Talis. Talis gave us authentic English Afternoon Tea! Which we rebelliously drank in the -morning- the next day :).
The convention hotel hosted a special reception for FKO this year to celebrate the con’s ten year history with the hotel (and three more to come, it’s been announced). There was a huge beautiful cake with the FKO logo on it and lots of snacks and punch and goodies. Very nice!
(photo by me)
During the reception Judith came up to me and gave me a -gorgeous- beaded lanyard that she had made for me for my con badge. It is made of green and gold beads with accent beads of Celtic knots and it is just beautiful. Thank you so much, Judith!
The reception was followed by the Friday night concerts. As is FKO tradition, the first concert up was performed by last year’s conchair, Howard (who also had special FKO moments ahead of him, but very few in the crowd knew that yet :)). It was great to hear some of Howard’s standards and the local crew singing “Canada’s Really Big” was especially fun.
Next up was Sue and Tom as Stone Dragons and hearing them sing is always a treat. Dave Clement joined them on stage, too, as well as Amy McNally on fiddle. Sue and Tom debuted some of their new songs, written as a result of the new songwriter group Tom has started up in Toronto filking. Clearly the group is producing some really good songs, as Tom and Sue proved!
Next up was Mary Crowell on keyboards with the ever wonderful Amy McNally accompanying her on fiddle. I believe it was Mary’s first FKO and it was our gain because she and Amy were amazing! Wonderful songs, great drama and terrific give and take between two musicians that were just in the zone.
Later in the evening UT shared the con suite with Jan DiMasi and Talis Kimberley, as we both held release parties for new filk projects. Jan was selling CDs of Talis’ concert at Duckon last year (Yay, I got one!) and we were selling our new “mockumentary” DVD, hot off the presses. You can find much, much more about our new DVD here and we will put information up soon about how those not able to attend FKO this year can order them! Thanks so much to those who supported us at the release party and bought a DVD! We also had chocolate loonies, Canada pins and space stickers to hand out as freebies to buyers :).
Thanks, too, to Sheryl and Bob Guest, who were running the con suite and very kindly provided an amazing spread of food as well as technical know-how to have our DVD running during the party.
It had been a very long day so by the time we left the release party we were pretty much ready to just go to bed. Jodi and I were also concerned because we were ill with very bad throats that we needed to try to spare for reasons yet to be revealed!
And now I pray to the cyber gods that LJ lets this through this time.
Much more to come.