"Come rain, sleet or snow, Tift is still playing"

tift's gibson





the bad news...about 4"-5" wintery mix of snow, sleet & ice was on the ground, it had consistantly been falling since about 8:00 am in the morning. and still was...and tift merritt, one of my favorite singer/songwriters, was scheduled to play a free set, her only show in the area, at ear x-tacy @ 6:00pm.

the good news... an e-mail from ear x-tacy about noon yesterday, simply said "come rain, sleet or snow, tift is still playing"

well, i got there about 5:30 and there were only about 10 people there so far, it ended up that about 30 or 40 of us braved it in just to see her (and about another 15-20 or so shopping the store and listening) and she was impressed and happy that so many had braved the elements to see her. so happy that she expanded her planned 30minute set to about an hour and 15 minutes. it was tift solo, on her acoustic gibson and keys. she played most of the new record, the beautiful, "another country" w/a few from "bramble rose & tamborine" thrown in for good measure. about 1/2 way into the show, she stepped out in front of the monitors, as she excused herself to the people sitting on the floor and said "can you hear me ok? let's try this" and launched to a beautiful, almost acapella version of "supposed to make you happy." it was stunning. beautiful. even in the middle of a busy record story on a snowy friday night. it was dead still and quiet.

afterwards she said "if you've got anything you want me to sign, if you wanna say hi, whatever, i'll be here" and she hung around and chatted, signed and asked everybody how they liked the new record, joked about the snow. she was wearing, as she explained, a "carolina blue," not "kentucky blue" ear x-tacy sweatshirt/hoodie* that she made john (ear x's owner) "give her" because she was "horribly unprepared" for the weather, it was snowing like crazy and she didn't even bring a coat and was wearing about 6" open toed heels (to which john commented "i like your snow boots"). she said, "wasn't it 60 degrees here yesterday?" we all answered "yes."

during the show and meet and greet, the snow turned to ice and the drive home was a little slippery. but it was well worth the trip. many thanks to tift, john and the staff @ ear x-tacy for making it happen.

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and, if you aren't familiar w/tift, you should be: