Chasing the feeling of being a newcomer

On Tuesday, September 9th, a minute before the 8:00 PM start, I sat down at the bar next to a stranger. It was Stringband Tunesdays at the Heatley: three sets of bluegrass, old-time, and country music. The series had just returned to East Hastings' honky-tonk from its summer break. In the house band were guitarist and primary vocalist Mark Kilianski, fiddler Trent Freeman, mandolinist John Reischman, and bassist Joseph Lubinsky-Mast.

The stranger didn't talk to me during the first set, but as soon as the set ended, she asked in an English accent if I could watch her drink while she went to the washroom. I honoured the request, and after she came back, we ended up talking through the rest of the night. She was indeed from England, in her mid-twenties on a Canadian excursion, staying downtown. She wasn't a big fan of country and whatnot, but she told me about how her dad had plucked the Heatley from some transatlantic algorithm and suggested it to her over text. She didn't have any personal connections to this night of music, but she came on a whim as a part of the broader search for good times.

I realized that I felt the same way. I know enough about fiddle music to be dangerous, but not enough – and certainly not enough about country music – to be any closer to the Tunesday stage than its ten feet of separation from my barstool. (On the other hand a guest artist, Danny Eberhardt, got a deserving nod to come play one of his original songs with the band later on.)