Luminara Re-cap

Yesterday the temperature here in Victoria BC was about 25' or higher...beautiful! gorgeous!

By the time I was ready to leave and go pick up my friend/bandmate Chris, huge clouds were forming in the sky. Not good news when doing an outdoors festival with an accordion.

We signed the band in, got our wristbands and our Glow, and made our way over to one of our bandmates house.

All the band members showed up and we had a illumination extravangza in the driveway, figuring out where to put our Glow, and flashing lights. Seeing the clouds, I grabbed a garbage bag from my bandmates house. We then finally got on our way to arrive at Beacon Hill Park on time.

About 4 songs in it began to rain on Luminara :(

I was beginning to freak out about my accordion and luckily my boyfriend was our stage manager and had me put my accordion under a tarp he had set up. I continued to perform as we all got very soaked.

After our first set I took my accordion to the Cameron Bandshell where it lived in a rubbermaid bin for the rest of the night.

Feeling a bit better, and having my loud megaphone in tow, Matt Pease and I made our way to our second performance location, found the band easily since we were all so lit up! Played, and were soaked down to your underwear kind of soaked! The crowd was great! The rain certainly left just the hardcore goodtimers! You know you can party if the rain doesn't stop you.

After this 2nd set we had a 45 min break. Most of us headed to the Cameron Bandshell, while the Trumpet girls went to the Sports Hut. After a bit of time Brian called me to tell me the Cricket Pitch was being striked, and Luminara was shutting down in general -all this and the rain had now stopped. The band would have been free to go, but we all agreed amongst ourselves to do one more quick set.

As we went outside to meet up with the Trumpet girls, Ariel and Jeani met up with us and stopped us. We were now given the job to lead Luminara out of the park. We attracted the biggest crowd around us, and hadn't even begun playing yet.

We started playing and Ariel waved us out of the park slowly, accummulating more crowd partiers long the way.

I can't describe the feeling of singing your heart out, being soaking wet, and looking behind you and your band and hundreds and hundreds of people following you and smiling and clapping and having themselves a great time.

Parading out of the park felt amazing.

We led everyone to the gravel field at the southend of the park, near Douglas and Dallas Rd. We continued to do a couple more big songs, a huge circle of the crowd forming all around us, and it was one huge party. At this time Ariel Rubin yells to me "You made Luminara!!!"

An unbelievable night:

BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE

This past weekend!

Hello readers!

The show with the Great Giffoni went great. I always enjoy performing with him, and Princess Muffin. I love it so much I'm doing another show with him tomorrow! A gig at St. Michael's School! Yahoo!

My Gypsy Marching Band, Bučan Bučan, played at the Moss Street Paint-In this past Saturday afternoon. We were down a trumpet, drummer, and 3 tubas, leaving us with just seven musicians...I know, that IS probably enough to make up a band :) but usually we have 14!



The 7 of us had a great time! I think there are probably at least 3000 photos of us out there now. We blasted our way up Moss Street and had so much fun!!

Some video footage c/o Oliver Mitchell here.

The Scoop!

Here's the scoop about this weekend:

Friday, July 17th at 10pm @ Logan's Tavern:
I'll be performing with "The Great Giffoni's Magic Show!" my Magician friend David Gifford.

Saturday, July 18th at 2:30pm @ the Paint-In:
Bučan Bučan performs at the Moss Street Paint-In (somewhere at Moss and May Street is where we'll begin our attack)

A hefty update!

Well it's been a long time, long time now...

So much to report!

HUGE NEWS!
Many new styles to check out on my "Squeeze Me - Accordion Chic Apparel" Online Etsy Shop. Follow this link to view the line and make an online purchase at the shop: http://squeezeme.etsy.com

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade squeezeme.etsy.com

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A huge thank you to Rowland and Emily Morgan for having myself and my lovely boyfriend over to his home for his birthday party last week. Rowland and I met at a art show opening which I was playing at, and he kindly asked if I would come play at his birthday party. I accepted this great invitation and we had a fantastic time at the party.

His blog can be seen here: http://rowmorg.blogspot.com although it doesn't seem he's updated it in awhile :)

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Bučan Bučan had a BLAST on Canada Day!

The Sidney Canada Day Parade was a great time. There's nothing more fun than playing with your band, which is the funnest and raddest, and march in a parade, people waving at you, clapping along, what a rush!!

Here is some video footage for your viewing pleasure (special credit to my Mom for dodging people on the sidewalk while she followed us down the street):








The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective had another fundraiser which I took part in called "Rock Lottery".
Here's how it worked: Twenty-five selected musicians meet in the A.M. at the arts collective. They are organized into four or five bands through a lottery-based chance selection. The bands then spend the day creating a set of original music to perform that night!

That's what I have to report... and as I promise everytime -I'll try to update my blog wayyy more often!!

xo Natasha