It’s good to be back but it was better to be away for the past week on Outlaw Country Cruise 6 for  a good week of stories, live music and the occasional bouts of weirdness.

It was a shock to return to Alberta where everyone seems to be in more of a hurry, more stressed out and angrier than usual, after a week of a self-imposed news and social media blackout, drunk on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean, where peace, love happiness, camaraderie and communing over great music is the general order of the day.

It was just nice to take a break from Covid, convoys and the Ukraine and people bellyaching about all of that and more on social media. Though the stateroom televisions had three news stations available, I made a point of avoiding them, in between shows, tuning in to repeats of Jack Black’s “Nacho Libre” and a couple documentaries about Mojo Nixon, the Beat Farmers and Asleep at the Wheel and a really cool film Grand Theft Parsons, a highly fictionalized account of  road manager Phil Kaufman stealing and cremating his best friend Gram Parsons body in the desert. Steve Earle interviewed Kaufman himself with the Emmylou Harris hot band a little later in the cruise.

 The Outlaw Country Cruise has become my one big annual escape and treat to myself. And as usual, the music  is what makes everything worthwhile from the Covid tests to the hassles of travelling by plane in the twenty-first century. I’m officially off duty, it is still an adjustment to not have to cover shows, though I end up writing about  them anyway.

 It’s a chance to see bands who barely ever make it to Canada, let alone Alberta, and in some cases the last chance to see them at all.

Since Outlaw Cruise 5, headliner Kris Kristofferson, the Georgia Satellites’ Dan Baird and The Bottle Rockets’ Brian Henneman all decided to retire from the business. Their shows on the last boat were their last official performances.

 This year, UNBEPA or Unlimited Beverages packages were included in the price of the cruise, so it got pretty drunk out so I made a point of leaving my camera in my stateroom while I gained my sea legs.

 After we went though the extensive boarding procedure including Covid tests in Miami, and everybody got settled in, found their sea legs and communed with old cruising buddies, the first night was off the hook. As usual Steve Earle  kicked everything off on the pool deck in the first big bash of the boat. He’s released three  albums in as many years including a tribute to his son Justin Townes Earle, and was wearing a Justin Townes Earle T-shirt, but  he kept his first show  to a greatest  hits show, so we heard all the classics, from “Guitar Town” to Copperhead Road,” after which I had to eat, luckily right around the corner from the pool deck.

 These cruises have always been fanatical about cleanliness. I usually get a kick out of the entrance to the dining room  where a girl with a sanitizer bottle is always stationed, laughing “Washy, washy, happy happy,” but they weren’t doing that this year. The staff seemed to be on edge a little more than usual, still insisting we sanitize before entering the dining room and grabbing a piece of pizza or burger to go or sitting down for a cornucopia of delicious food.

 While there was no “washy, washy, happy happy,” the staff gleefully added coffee themed lyrics as they sang popular hits while pouring slightly hungover outlaws their morning coffee.

 Though we were all required to be vaccinated and take a negative covid test before boarding, masks were supposed to be worn throughout the cruise, but few were, though one of the gifts we all received was a cool luchador style mask to go with this year’s luchador theme.

That aside it was all about the music.

 Almost every band I signed up to see were playing on the same night, usually competing with each other, but I jumped between the upper level of the pool deck where American Aquarium were playing  their laid back mid-tempo country rock music, mostly from their new CD “Lamentations, and the Spinnaker theatre, where Asleep At the Wheel were holding court for their first show of the week.

 Asleep at the Wheel were fantastic as I expected, so the theatre was packed. It was tough to  get a sight line around all the dancers and drinkers. Ray Benson is the consummate frontman. He grinned as he juggled during a few of his band members’ solos on a variety of western swing hits including lots of Bob Wills

 They had a relentless rhythm and an unstoppable horns section.

 Shinyribs  had their first show in the Stardust, the main theatre on the first night. That was one show where I really missed having my camera. Frontman Kevin Russell did a fine soft shoe, belting out soulful country and jazz tinged music with a mile  wide smile.

San Diego alt country band Beat Farmers also played their first show of the cruise in the atrium on the first night. They played a tight set, had fantastic multi-part vocal harmonies and even had a few sweet harmonized guitar solos as they played a lot of the songs from  their “Pursuit of Happiness album.”

The next day had a lot of highlights. One I was really looking forward to was a Salute to Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, one of the first cosmic country/ hippy country bands to emerge in the late ’60s, lead by Bill Kirchen who was everywhere, playing his own own shows, or leading a  jam on Bakersfield country music or just popping up on stage to jam with pretty much everybody else on the boat. I lost track of how many times I heard “Seeds and Stems,” but the “outlaws” on board enjoyed it.

The Commander Cody Tribute was many of several shows featuring guest appearances form the other performers on the boat and showcased Kirchen’s prodigious skill on the Telecaster. He played his spectacular jam on  “Hot Rod Lincoln” which  incorporates pretty much every well known guitar hook from  the mid twentieth century from Johnny Cash to the Sex Pistols. I got to hear him play that numerous times and was left with my jaw on the floor every time.

Exhibition Park is postponing three major events for a few weeks due to Covid 19 restrictions.

The Southern Alberta RV Expo has been rescheduled to Feb. 25 – March 6, 2021 from the original date of Feb. 4-14.
AG-Expo and Northern American Seed Fair has been postponed to March 17-19, 2021 from the original date of Feb. 24 – 26.
 And the Southern Alberta Home & Garden Show will now take place April 7-10, 2021 from the original date of  March 17-20.

 “ So many of these local businesses rely on these shows every year, so we’ve giving them as much opportunity to adjust,” said Mike Warkentin, Chief Operating Officer of Lethbridge & District Exhibition, estimating the postponement will affect approximately 600 local businesses.