All the way to merlefest I don't think i'll miss you much. Three knockout moments we need to share with the people from this weekend are (we only got to go for sat. and half of sunday) - 1) sitting at the foot of the cabin stage drinking a hot coffee hearing Gillian Welch and David rawlings sing a new song of theirs (in unison!) for an amazing 5 minutes. Then hearing them cover "White Rabbit". youch. 2) watching all the Cailtin Cary Thad Cockrell sets we could manage. Having just returned from their european tour, they were in fantastic form, each show topping the last - fantastic-o! As usual we highly recommmend that Begonias record to everyone and EVERY one. If you' haven't heard it yet you can either go get it now, or wait until David Lynch puts "please break my heart" in his next movie, and then it will be very chic to go listen to "that begonias record that was underappreciated back in 2005". 3)Watching Doc Watson and the Nashville Bluegrass Band play their gospel set on sunday morning. Doc is 83 and still, without question, plays a set that never fails to silence and inspire the crowd and every other musician who has played the stage during the weekend. Incredible and beautiful and always the biggest treat of Merlefest. All in all we had a great weekend and even manage to squeeze in a minute or two for some pics with a couple unruly fans (see pic). Thanks to all who came out to Tyler's to see us play with THe Old Ceremony. We were very excited to finally get to play with TOC. Django (Haskins) is a primo singer and songwriter (a rarer combination than one might think), and the band he has gathered is such an amazing group of musicians. It goes without saying that they were fantastic and won many friends.