by Craig Mercer
The only part of the East Coast Music Awards that I enjoyed more than the party on Friday night was the endless partying and jamming that took place in any one of several rooms in the Delta hotel, any time between the hours of two and six in the morning. There’s just something magical about hiking through the halls of a hotel at four o’clock in the morning, following the lead of an insanely drunk bagpiper. And I didn’t think it could get any better than the songwriters circle that Tommy, Carlo, and I had in the room over beers on Sunday afternoon. But on Sunday night, after the awards show, I found myself in musical heaven. People were lined up outside a crowded hotel room to get a glimpse of what turned out to be my favorite performance of the weekend. Jennifer Roland was joined by some of the members of Slainte Mhath, Fred Lavery, Tom Fidgen, Mike Morrison, and Matt Foulds, while I beat on an upside down blue box in accompaniment. In the room and in the hall outside the door, people were stomping and clapping along to the music, stopping only to watch Scott Brown rescue a trapped party-goer from the washroom by kicking the door in. I felt that things just couldn’t get any better than what I was experiencing there that room of the Delta hotel in St.John’s – but then I remembered that the ECMA’s are going to be held in Cape Breton next year.
