Sunday...

Well, the Stompin' Tom Connors concert was all I expected it to be! Crowded, hot, and wonderful! The old feller can still belt 'em out, but his trademark board is not stomped through at the end of the night like it used to be!

The set opened with a live version of Bud the Spud.

"I'm Bud the Spud from the bright red mud of good old P. E. I.
Rollin' down the Highway smilin'!"

PEI of course is potato country. I lived there for several years, and have plenty of stories about that place. It is actually where Tom was born, and I have seen his daddy's old pickup truck and homestead. The tune is an old favorite, and it got the crowd going.

Then he went on to his travels in Ontario. Picking tobacco in Tilsonburg, and playing the bars right here in Kemptville.

"Tilsonburg...Tilsonburg. My back still aches when I hear that word, Tilsonburg".
and my favorite..."Big Joe Mufferaw paddled up the Ottawa, all the way to Mattawa in just one day! "

Joe Mufferaw is the original big northern logger, the model for Paul Bunyan. Lots of fun stories told about big Joe Mufferaw around the Ottawa Valley! It would be a feat indeed to paddle a canoe from Mattawa to Ottawa in under a week, and to paddle upriver...yup, that would be worth singing about!

The heat was too intense for Brenda, and my friend Myrna. They were nigh on to fainting from it! We were up high, and the heat from the crowd just got hotter and hotter. But to give them credit, they stuck it out to the end. The set closed with "Sudbury Saturday Night", his "signature" song. He tosses in extra lyrics from time time depending on where he is at, but I think it is his most famous tune. Sudbury is a mining town in Northern Ontario, and they mine nickel there....for the International Nickel Company, known as INCO.

"Weeeeeelllllllll..the girls are out to Bingo, and the guys are getting stinko!
They'll talk no more 'bout INCO, its Saturday tonight"

Everybody was singing along, clapping, and whooping! It sounds a bit like "western" music, and a little like "folk" music, but its not "western", its not "folk". Its Stompin' Tom Connors, and is in a class of its own! Pick up a CD, its worth it!