Twin Creeks Carnival

On May 31, the Drop Daddies played an outdoor concert at the Twin Creeks Elementary School end-of-year carnival.   It was a scorchin hot pre-summer day. Our kids had decorated the stage with signs like “The Drop Daddies Are Awesome”, and “The Drop Daddies Will Blow Your Mind”.  And, of course, there were cake walks, hula hoop contests, and cotton candy everywhere.

This show was special for us, because it was our original vision realized.   At the beginning of the school year, Xeno and John had this crazy idea to bring together some parents with their kids on stage to perform some live rock music.  Over the year, we rounded up all the Daddies, got our act together, learned a bunch of tunes, and finally now, brought a group of kids up on stage with us to sing and play.

The first group included members of the school Glee club along with our own kids, singing The Monkees’ Pleasant Valley Sunday.  This is not an easy song- lots of words, complex harmonies, and key changes.  The kids practiced just a few times over school lunchbreak under the leadership of glee club leader Jenean Watrous; and we never had a chance to play it together with the band until we stepped on stage.  The kids did great!

Then, the Daddies’ kids (Reese, Mary, Sophie, Jess, Maddy and Emily) sang a few more songs with us:

On Lonely Boy, the kids sang the chorus “Oh-oooh, I’ve got a love that keeps me waiting…”   Also, Kai brought his mojo and rocked the solo on saxophone, joining his daddy Xeno on harmonica.

On Life Is A Highway, the kids joined us singing the big chorus, helping out Gary and John on those tough high parts.

And for the grand finale, the kids totally rocked Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, singing “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks”, and “school’s out for summer, school’s FOREVER”!  You can imagine their enthusiasm, with only two weeks left of school.   It was so great, we brought them back to play it again at the end of evening.

And to top it all off, Gary finally got to bust out his big red school bell that he built specially for this occasion- he’s been waiting to hit that button his entire life!  Check it out:

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