Take a few minutes to watch this video so you understand what we were in for.
The opening act was a local guy who did a lot of ballad-ish stuff about love lost. Larkin looked sleepy and played on my phone.
The Infamous String Dusters took the stage about the time Larkin is usually going to bed. About 20 seconds into their first song, she said something to me that I couldn't hear over the frenetic fiddlin' and banjo pluckin' and horizontal slide guitar noodlin'. The urgency of her tone and the way she shot out of our seats made me think she needed to use the bathroom.
In fact, she made a bee line for the mass of enthusiastic dancers around the stage and wriggled into the very front row and proceeded to cut loose. I figured people wouldn't be quite so charmed if I squeezed in front of them, so I stayed a few rows behind where I could catch occasional glimpses of her flailing arms and flying braids. Evidently, she made friends with everyone within 10 feet or so of where she was dancing. The band, apparently, did not have a slow setting.
At intermission, she returned to our seats sweaty, reportedly dying of thirst and divested of a layer of clothing. She didn't wait for the music to start to find her place by the stage for the second set. By the end of the night, she had been hoisted in the air by several fellow audience members, and the band dedicated a song to her. We spent several minutes near the stage after the show so she could say proper goodbyes to all of her dancin' buddies.
John, I'm so sorry you missed it... but, if you and I had gone, I highly doubt either one of us would have ended the evening on some strange man's shoulders.
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