Banjo banjo o' mine

Jbird and I went to see Béla Fleck perform last night. Jbird had been at a lunch with Béla as the guest artist.  He was there to talk about succeeding in the music industry and Jbird got us the tickets there.  It was fabulous fun, I couldn't help smiling the whole way through.  That is a sure sign of a good concert.  He played solo banjo in the first set and his wife joined him with her banjo and voice for the second set.  His solo performance was amazing but it was lovely to see him play with his wife.  She has a lovely lovely lovely voice and a cute laugh, their chemistry was so comfortable.  They kept 'playing to the death' which is the best type of banjo playing.  It was very cute.  Banjo is such a sincere instrument, so earnest in its intensity as the musician tries to throw out as many notes as possible per beat.  I think it has a bad rap by those who haven't stopped to listen.  But then Jbird and I are big bluegrass fans. 

During the course of the concert, I discovered that Jbird and I have a lot in common with this husband/wife team.  First and most obvious, her name (Abigail) is three syllables and starts with the letter A and so does mine.  Ha ha.  Jbird made me promise not to write when I told him this idea but I told him I needed to underwhelm my audience for all the other amazing commonalities.  Alright, here goes.  They play the same uncommon instrument as each other, just as Jbird and I both play viola.  The have a five month old baby, born two days before BabyBird (this was my favourite).  She has been to the Sichuan provence in China, as have I.  And actually, there I end, though Jbird added that they are on tour and we are about to go on tour.  I think he was talking about the viola duet music he just got out of the library that we will be playing together with a possible audience of one (BabyBird).  Why yes.  If that is being on tour then yes, so are we.

Seriously, those two are so talented.  Not only has she been to Sichuan, she SPEAKS CHINESE and SINGS CHINESE and sounds awesome.  Meanwhile, he has won FIFTEEN grammies, and been nominated for thirty.  Come. On.  Why is he so amazing?  Huh.  Here they are back in April with her bubba in her belly.  And here's a neat tune from a few years ago.  It was such a great concert, I hope you can see them some time if you haven't already.