FREE show at Ravenwood Manor Park 8/19

[Chicago Sandy]

Realize it's short notice, but the SASS! Trio (AGFer Sage Woman--Susan Urban-- Kate Early and I) will be co-billing with nationally renowned singer/songwriter/guitarist/harpist Ariane Lydon Sunday 8/19 for a FREE (not even a tip jar) concert under the pergola in Chicago's Ravenswood Manor Park, Manor & Francisco Aves. (1/2 bl. from the CTA Brown Line Francisco station). We'll be alternating two half-hr. sets apiece with Ariane (as we did with Lou & Peter Berryman last year) beginning at 7 pm. Bring a blanket or chair, and feel free to picnic (no campfires or grills, though). If it rains, we will move indoors to a nearby vacant apartment donated by the building owner (signs will be posted).

[Chicago Sandy]

Well, it doesn't look good, folks. There are reports of a big wooden ship moored at the marina at Belmont Harbor and pairs of animals marching from the Lincoln Park Zoo across Lake Shore Drive to board it. Our headliner, Ariane Lydon, had her agent call and inform us that she is headed back up to her farmhouse in central WI to pump out her flooded basement and sandbag the perimeter of her house. Forecast calls for three more days of steady rain (if not the proverbial 40 days & nights), and without a headliner I doubt whether audiences will flock to the park to find out in which empty apartment they can squat to hear the SASS! Trio do an unplugged house concert. (The stage is covered, but the lawn is unsheltered). We are understandably a little nervous about dealing with electric-powered equipment in the rain, since electrocution is not conducive (albeit conductive) to a good performance--though I suppose to some sadistic observers it might seem entertaining.

Even if it stops raining, I doubt whether we'd go out there to do two one-hour sets ourselves, because at least half our potential audience was expecting to see Ariane (due to the concert having been mentioned on the radio and in the papers). Things may change, but unless someone else takes care of Ariane's basement it wouldn't be a double bill.

There is a chance of a rain date Sep. 9--but it would not include me
:( because when I booked a nonrefundable vacation trip with my husband for 9/4-11 nobody mentioned the possibility of a rain date. (Personally, I don't think that's fair, since had I been told about that I'd have kept the date open, since it's a well-paying gig and now I'd get bupkiss despite my having promoted and rehearsed for the show--but that's a subject for the "Performing, Recording" thread).

If I'm done with dinner early enough, I may hang out over at Bill's Blues for the second set of Norm Siegel & Friends (and be one of those "friends").