As I’m often too busy to blog on the weekends, I thought I’d start a regular Monday blog to report about whatever gigs, happenings, excitements or trivia that have occurred to me since Friday!

Hopefully this will become a regular spot so they may be longer posts than usual! I’ll report on Bristol things or festivals if I’ve been at them.

So……where to start?

Saturday
Got off to a bad start – I attended a Music Lab, run by one of my drum teachers in the morning only to find it was cancelled due to lack of interest….extraordinary because it was a great opportunity lost to make music with a really talented teacher.

In the afternoon I had a practice scheduled with a guy who plays drums and harmonica – cancelled due to his poorly self (mmmmm what’s wrong with Saturday so far)!

I made a homemade Pear Cake in preparation for Mother’s Day on the Sunday but the day didn’t start properly till 9pm when I went out to the Kuumba Project in St Pauls to a great Latin night called “If I Can’t Dance It’s Not My Revolution”.

What a stomping night. The first band was called El Mercado de Miran fronted by a very talented female singer/percussionist – it was a small line up but really good consisting of a keyboard, cajones (kind of beat box), a guitarist and the singer.

El Mercado de Miran

The sound engineering was awful which was a shame as the musicians were brilliant.

The second band was an incredible family line up called Colores de Mi Tierra (Comlumbian) with the front woman being extremely pregnant notwithstanding which she danced, sang and shook her shakers with great verve! The drummer was about 10 and the girl dancers just children – amazing energy and got everyone dancing

Colores de mi Tierra

Finally, well known Bristol band Orquesta de Montpelier did their thing and the whole crowd danced till 2am – the heat in the room was almost overpowering but the music made it impossible not to dance till you dropped.

Orquesta de Montpelier

What a fantastic night out! There are lots more photos on this Facebook album More Photos

Me after dancing for about 4 hours!

Sunday was Mothers Day in the UK so I had a lovely afternoon with my mum (eating the yummy cake which I so rarely bake ha ha).

Last night I played at the open mic at the Tantric Jazz Cafe, my usual Sunday night haunt. It went well and I sold a CD to someone as well as got a chance to play several songs including a piano piece, as they’ve got a keyboard there now.

OK – that’s my weekend – just a snippet of the rich musical life in Bristol every weekend.