Eliza Gilkyson, Cienfuegos...Austin Texas

Last night, my husband and I went to our children's school fundraiser which ended up being a great deal of fun. I worried at first about finding the right things to wear (be woman, worry about clothes), and then I decided to just 'forget about it' and not worry as the people in 'our school' are mostly South Austinites, born and raised or adopted ones. South Austinites are more relaxed about dress codes, life styles, and are politically diverse. So some people were very dressed up and some were not, and no one cared. The venue was beautiful and we only had to turn around once because we did not know where it was and zoomed right past. The One World Theater is a great intimate venue especially for music and multi purpose events such as our fundraiser. In one big room, we had the silent auction items lay-out plus the food with tall small tables to stand by and put your plates and drinks down. Great for mingling and keeping people moving, especially moving around the center display area with the items. Another area outside of that must be used as an outside eating area as this big clear plastic tent cover (and I mean big, as in tall) was used since the evenings here are still kinda chilly where there were regular round tables where people could sit and eat and talk. Upstairs was the actual stage and music area. Two music performances were billed for this fundraiser; Eliza Gilkyson and Cienfuegos, an Austin based Cuban band that also plays bolero and other latin styles. (can't dowload picture from their site, check it out)

It ended up being too late for us to enjoy any of Cienfuegos (it was time to return home plus we were tired) but we certainly got to enjoy Eliza Gilkyson. So much so, my husband bought her cd Paradise Hotel last night from which she played several songs.




Check out " Borderline" and "Man of God" and other tracks from her album. I would almost say her voice sounds better live than on the cd but let's instead say unlike a lot of 'doctored' singers (and especially those packaged ones, you know who you are!), she is a true performer who can carry her weight in gold recorded AND live. The One World Theater also had great acoustics but nevertheless, Eliza's voice sounded so ageless and 'young'. I can imagine her being an octogenarian and still sounding young, unlike some singers like say, Bob Dylan who sounded 80 when he was younger!

Anyhow.. we had a great evening, came home 5 hours after the fact and won a bid with the silent auction for an introductory Karate lesson plus 2mos worth classes.
The new baby sitter turned out just fine and hopefully there will be more dates in the future. I certainly could get used to it. Especially listening to some great LIVE music, which Austin is famous for.
Sigh, too bad we can't go back there tonight and see Kenny Loggins!