This is how my buddy Daran Gaus, a.k.a. Hollywood, described Great Falls’ Food and Wine Fest to us last year:

“It’s the one time of year all of Great Falls comes together and gets shitfaced.”

Spoken like a true poet.

Not unlike last year, Great Falls’ Wine and Food Fest at the Best Western/Heritage Inn proved to be one of the merrier and more entertaining nights of the season.   Here’s a layout for the evening:  After buying a ticket, the attendees are invited to eat and drink all they want (for free, might I add) from 6-9 p.m., dance their pants off to the music of a really handsome band from 9 p.m. to midnight, and then go hang out at the hotel bar, called either The Smoke Pit or The Smoke Tavern, immediately afterwards.  It’s a great opportunity to sample the best food, wine, and beer that Great Falls’ local businesses have to offer.  We, not having to play until 9, certainly took advantage of the free food and booze in the three hours before taking the stage.  My personal favorite was the hot wings from The Sting.  Holy crap, those were good.

Our performance, where we were perched on top of the balcony looking down at all the attendees, was a great time.  The dance floor was packed with people who knew how to dance and others who had no clue, but were still having a good time.  The most popular songs were probably the slow dancing tunes, likely because sometimes jitterbugging can get pretty violent if there’s a lot of people on the dance floor throwing their partners to and fro.  Aside from a brief blackout on stage where we literally couldn’t see a damn thing, the performance went exceptionally well, especially when you take into consideration all of us, save for John, drank our weight in beer, thanks to the lovely Miller gals.

Highlights:

–The silent auction had a Guinness hockey jersey up for bidding.  We all pitched in a little bit and ended up buying it for John.  Happy birthday/Christmas/Flag Day, Johnny Cakes!

–We didn’t end up partying till 6 in the morning this year, which was definitely a good thing.  I woke up the next day not wishing I was dead.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s an improvement.

–Here’s a conversation that Josh, John and I had on the way to Taco Del Mar on Sunday morning:

A.J.: “You know what ‘Taco Del Mar’ means in Mexican?”

Josh: “No.  What?”

A.J.: “Taco of the Sea.”

Josh: “So it’s Taco of the Yes?”

A.J.: “What?”

Josh: “I thought ‘sea’ was ‘yes’ in Spanish.”

John:  ”You know what ‘taco’ literally means in English? Meat, cheese, and veggies wrapped up in a flour tortilla.”

A.J., who studied Spanish for five years: “Really?”

John: “No.”

And feel free to use your imagination for the setlist.  We played it all, baby!