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The little kids almost stole the show from The Gourds Thursday night at Central Market in Ft Worth. They hit the dance floor early, by the first verse of the opening song. Two little girls at first, cute as all hell, waltzing and twirling to “Dying Of The Pines.” They were soon followed by the all the rest of the kids there and by the end of the second song, the highly danceable “My Name Is Jorge,” it looked a little like first grade free form dance class out there, only with better music.

My friend who turned me onto the place once described it as “the only bar in town with a playland.” So when the Gourds faithful showed up, they brought the kids. And the kids seemed to love it.

Of course at a show like this, it’s easy to forget you’re at a grocery store, not a bar. Even with a half dozen toddlers hamming it up.

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“This is a really big deal for us” she confided, midway through their set on the first day of this year’s Folks Festival. “We’ve never been the closing act at a music festival.”

This was after we had abandoned our tarp and moved to the front, to get away from the talking mommies in the back. It was a good move. In front, the crowd wasn’t talking. In fact, between songs, and after the loud applause died down, mostly what we could hear were the crickets chirping, such was the level of the concentration by the crowd with respect to what was happening on stage. Read the rest of this entry »