Greens show last night at the Wheel House

Nathan and Holly's wedding was a great event, and they were some happy folks throughout the festivities. The event brought together a good group of people to help them celebrate. The wedding and reception was in Vienna.
And then as far as the music aspect goes, a few hours later things re-convened at the Wheel HOuse; it segue-d nicely into just a good old Greens show; with many of the most loyal local fans coming out, a decent amount of the "wedding party" folks, and then an added bonus of many people in for the holidays, wanting to get out and catch up with friends. All in all, it made what likely was the biggest night ever at the wheel house; crowd wise. The hard working crew must have been totally exhausted by the 3 am time; but it had to be a good night sales-wise.
On to the music: with aaron phillips back for work on the saxophone and flute, and tony castillo and dan sitting in on extra guitar work; and adam phillips spelling Nathan on the drums early on and then finishing up the sets so Nathan could have an easy early night, and then steve mcginnis helping andy with some vocals throughout, it was a very exciting, diverse and high energy greens show. Early on, it was many "early" greens songs that used to feature aaron's saxophone so well; later it was a lot of covers so the various additional musicians could be featured and jam together with a good sound- especially as the dancers started accumulating and appreciating the non-stop dance numbers in the later sets. Tony stepped in for some bass playing; recreating an earlier incarnation of the Greens, as well as some antics with Aaron that were reminscent of early shows. Andy seemed to enjoy the variety; including a middle of the show stretch where he didn't even have to play guitar; he could strut around like James Brown, or Mick Jagger for some of the covers- mo-town and others. Lots of familiar faces; folks that have moved away, but are in for the holidays. Lots of clusters of folks coming there together. It is really something to see the crowd get into El Dinero as one body for the shout-outs.
Andy definitely built people up for the new years eve show next sunday night- It would be hard to believe that the core group of enthusiasts would not turn around and show up for that one, even with other events competing.
Unfortunately, Aaron will be heading back to California on the 28th, so it will be back to the regular Greens by then. They are sharing the bill with Brett Cain that night, so they won't have to run themselves ragged.
It was good having (brief) conversations with: aaron, tony, dan, steve burke, etc. all people with key connections to phases of the greens past and present. And it was great to see the clearly devoted following the band has that culminates in these types of holiday shows.