the solstice curse strikes again

Massive changes seem to affect Spiral Dance at each winter solstice. This time they are losing Ingrid the Violinist, who is, apparently, quite sick of music (at least for the moment). She will be missed by everyone, although she has threatened to still appear at gigs to heckle the band. However her replacement, Hayley the Violinist, played a couple of numbers to much aclaim (and, as Adrienne so noted, makes a quite nice Wood Elf). A quite different style, and I think it's going to work very well. [Ingrid was a bad influence on the band – her replacement had actual music on a proper music stand to play off of.] Ingrid will still be heavily featured in the new CD, continuing the tradition that the latest CD should in no way reflect the current make up of the group. Paul also got to play with his new MIDI accordian, the Alchemist by Peter Hyde, which is very very impressive. I can see easterbilby wanting one desperately. They played a new song which I think is called The Witch's Tree or some such, and it did quite a nice rendition of a massive church organ. Paul can finally tune! Shock! Horror! He finally cares! The aforementioned new CD will be recorded in September, and should include this song and Land of Albion and many other unheard new ones. There won't be much in the way of gigs as they get Hayley up to speed, and their next performance is probably the Australian Wiccan Conferance in September. I did in fact manage to attend the gig, although I couldn't dance like a mad dance thing very much past the first set. Still far too weak and readily fatigued from my recent illness. But it was lots of fun, although I have to admit I'm not as good dancing Burning Times widdershins. Too used to heading left – it felt unnatural, plus it was a lot more difficult to manage the ambient energy flow. Although I am getting tired of organising people in this dance. I'm a Discordian for Eris' sake. It's a violation of my fundamental principles. Although it was lots of fun knowing the words of Adrienne's new song well enogh to sing along with it without great difficulty, but then again, mosr music is incredibly easy to predict if you know the artist well enough. <grin>