Back to Lake City Pub
Live music Saturdays at Lake City Pub are always the place to be. But especially when Billy Stoops and Leanne Trevalyan are going to be on stage!
This evening was unique, as it wasn’t Billy playing with Leanne supporting, but rather they were going to do a singer songwriter swap. This meant Leanne would tell a little story behind one of her songs and play it, and then Billy would tell a story about one of his songs. While you know if you’ve seen Billy play that he likes to joke with the audience this his songs are about “a girl I met one-time”, an evening like this, at Lake City Pub, hits a different note.
We got there early, as we tend to on Lake City Pub nights, to settle in, say hi to our favorite servers, and order dinner. With Billy playing, the group we have come to know and love all showed up and we settled in as a large mass of folks and tables right up front. We ordered a plate of the jalapeño poppers (a must have at Lake City Pub), my (Zeek) go to- the patty melt, and some drinks to enjoy with the music. We had ordered our new favorite Argentino bottle of Malbec, but when we went to order a second at some point in the night, we found out that they had run out of this new brand! We decided to go with a bottle of the Clone7, a red blend. It was a little higher acidity with a bit of a bite, but not a bad second option to the Malbec. Lake City Pub’s food and wine continue to elevate it to one of our favorites. It is so much more unique than the simple French fries and beer type options one might expect when ordering food at a pub, but it is truly 5-star dining! If you haven’t had a chance to try out their amazing menu, prepared in house, you are missing out.
Leanne and Billy played well into the evening. Between the years of playing together, and their time individually writing and recording, they were at no loss for stories. They reminisced about people they had played with, individuals who had inspired them, and we still had a few about a girl Billy met one time, just with some more details added in! The carefree persona that often accompanies the two was replaced with a softer more intimate view into who they both are as artists, and the places their music have taken them over the years. There is something just a bit magical about the neon glow from the stage as they played and reminisced together and with the folks in the audience.
Lake City Pub is somewhere we always encourage folks to try out! Between the food and service, and of course entertainment, it is a hidden gem. We were thrilled to see some familiar faces that we had met a couple months ago down at the Elks. Mike and Anne, another empty nester couple, had heard about the event coming up on our blog Facebook page and decided to give it a try! We had previously connected over our newfound hobby of dancing, and how difficult it can be to find places with live music that are welcoming to folks who want to get up and dance. Getting out and dancing this evening and watching them get up to dance was fantastic!
It can be difficult after 20+ years of raising children to reconnect as a couple and figure out who the two of you are outside of “parents”. One of my (Denice) favorite lines in a movie is in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2”, when Aunt Voula tells Toula “you were a girlfriend before you were a wife and a mother.” There is so much importance in continuing to date each other as a couple. While there are millions of ways you can do that, for us, taking up dancing has been such a fun option whether date night is in our living room with music playing on our TV, at our favorite local bar, or dancing the night away at a musical festival! And we are always looking to connect with other couples who are at that same stage. Seeing Mike and Anne again and chatting with them was a highlight of our evening!
This was a fun one because you can see us figuring out when Billy is going to end the song. But it is also one of the reasons why dancing together as a couple is so much great. The type of communication it takes to be comfortable getting up and dancing to live music, where you aren’t in a controlled environment, is so important. But also such a great skill to learn as a couple!
Billy and Leanne played late into the evening! And Leanne even talked a bit about the difference between her two tambourines and let a couple of us try them out.
It was a fun and relaxing evening, even if we stayed out too late! We tend to not want to leave until the music is over… After we said goodnight to everyone, we left for our drive home. Lake City Pub is about 45 minutes away from us, but we love it too much to care!