Until the Dragon Comes

To everyone who is celebrating today.

I wasn't posting this time last year, but I really wanted to get something here, in my permanent record, to celebrate the 29th September 2023.

I supposed to see Home Free in concert in March 2020... but it was finally September 2023 before they were able to return to Europe to complete their tour. By then I'd decided that I would take every opportunity to see them while they were here, and booked for all three shows (Birmingham, Manchester, London). The first was Birmingham on the 29th, and I had meet and greet tickets, which got me in the front row...



( Cut for Longest Johns... )

As you may have gathered from my entries of the last couple of years, most of my fannishness has been spent on the band Home Free, and more recently the Longest Johns. There's been a connection between them for a couple of years, with HF's Adam Chance being a big fan of TLJ's and inviting them to the HF concert in Birmingham last year.

But then about ten days ago, we had the news that one of the members of TLJ wasn't going to be able to start their US tour, due to visa issues, and that they'd asked Chance to fill in for him. As HF were having a few weeks of rest from touring, he jumped at the opportunity, and I've been loving the pictures and video of them touring together.



Robbie (the missing John) should have rejoined them for their show tonight in Nashville, and that'll be good as well - I've missed him - but it's been a fun week, for fans of both groups, and for Chance himself. Here's hoping they'll take the opportunity to make an official collab video somewhere along the way.

Released today, the title track from their latest album. Not strictly acapella, but with a lovely guitar track from friend, and co-writer on this song, Chris Chatham.

"You can't erase the past, but it ain't meant to last, and it's time we start to learn from our mistakes."

This is possibly my favourite Home Free Christmas cover, though it has plenty of competition... Great gospel!Rob vocals, a bassline that makes it hard not to dance along, and then they gave us this wonderful goofy video to go with it.

The latest song from the new album, written by Tim and Austin, as well as friends Adam Wakefield of Texas Hill (the one on the keyboard in the Dreamer video) and Chris Chatham. Long time cameraman and video editor Jimmy Bates came up with clever and different style for this video, featuring beautiful autumn colours in upstate New York.

Last December Home Free did a show live from the Ryman in Nashville, a special venue for country music fans. One of the groups they'd recently adopted into the family at that point were Texas Hill. They'd been performing this version of a song from their 2019 album Dive Bar Saints in all the shows where Texas Hill were opening for them, and released it on their channel - one of the fun things about it is that it includes the band introductions, so if you were wondering who they are, here's where to find out.

It's release day for Home Free's new album, and we got another video to celebrate, this one written by their friend and collaborator Jeffrey East, and added to by Tim Foust - apparently there's a saying in Nashville, write a word, get a third, and Tim claims that's his contribution this one...



If you want to hear the whole album, you can find it on Spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/album/0645nY5JGmW0eiyS0DEAGZ?si=72XsAVkVRDuaguiiAA0t6A

What do you mean, it's not Friday? Sorry, it's been one of those weeks. To make up for it, a longer video this week...

During the period of lockdowns when they couldn't tour as a group, Tim and Austin both did a lot of song-writing, worked on solo projects, and Tim in particular did a lot of what he called Backyard Bashes, informal scratch concerts outside at people's homes. The outcome of that was a collective of musicians who have recently come together to do monthly studio session livestreams. The main part of the session is paid subscription only, but they did a 30 mins taster beforehand, and here it is...

(I like to say that I'm a fan of the Home Free Extended Universe - not just the band itself, and the solo projects of various members, but also some of the wonderful and talented people they've worked with over the years.)

The Hound and the Fox are a married couple from Oregon, who started making music videos for other people, including Peter Hollens, Pentatonix and Home Free themselves, but later switched to making their own music. They've done a number of collaborations with members of Home Free, and particularly with (bass) baritone Adam Chance. They've released quite a few songs for Halloween over the years, and this year released an album of them, including new tracks such as this original sea legend...