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I went to my third faire last weekend. The one before, 250 miles to the south, this one 250 to the East on I-70 to Wentzville, Missouri for the Greater Saint Louis Renaissance Faire. I was there on Memorial Day and the Sunday preceding it.

This one is relatively new, this was only the fourth year it was presented. There were only three permanent buildings that I could discern, a tavern with a stage adjoining the drinking area, a roofed platform for the highborns observing the jousting field, and a pirate ship hull with a fore and poop deck and a dock in front for a stage. There were also some permanent looking board fences with hinged gates here there and about. Everything else was in a cloth tent or under a canopy.

The faire itself was on grounds rising from the floodplain of a stream, a flat mowed grassland where the parking was. The path to the fair took you over a small concrete dam with some pipes thru it for the stream to pass. This design perhaps facilitated the formation of the flood two weekends before, so vividly described by Vince Conaway here on a.f.r. You then climbed up a gradual incline with a few small dips and crests along the way to an upper plain where the jousting grounds were. Then you descended down the other side of the hill to get to the ship. It was a bit athletic after a while trying to walk around casually, the climbing wasn't severe, but the repetitions got to you. The paths were all covered with gravel that was sometimes large enough that you'd want to all them rocks, and I wound up wearing my thicker soled mundane shoes. It was painful to walk in thin-soled period shoes.

But the grounds were under trees everywhere but the area around the jousts and the tavern nearby. The weather on Sunday was sunny and climbed only into the high 70's, and Memorial Day it got up into the 80's. But heat was little noticed beneath all the trees.

The faire differed from others by being set in France, they called their realm Petit Lyon, and the year was 1549. BFA here could have meant Bad French Accent, all the participants greeted me with "bonjour monsieur" (or "madame"). The King was Henri II (contemporary with Henry VIII). The man playing him did not project as strong a character as the Henries that I have seen, he seemed more like a straight man to other people's histrionics. The best played character I thought was a cardinal, in scarlet robes and miter. He had a perfect mixture of French and fop. (I could not find the name of the actor in the program.) In spite of the location in the south of France, there was still a Scottish encampment and numerous kilts walking around.

The pre-gate show followed a script, and it was the first scene in a sequence that I only saw the ending of at the end of the second day in front of the pirate ship. It involved some pirates stealing a Maltese Falcon that looked exactly like the one in the Humphrey Bogart movie. It was there on the first day that I encountered Josie, John, and Wendy of Minstrosity again for the first time since KCRF last year, and there were big hugs all around.

I had on for the first time the maroon Italian noble gown with tie-on sleeves and pale pink chemise beneath that I had acquired at Oklahoma. I was soon able to find a floppy brim hat to go with it, and later on a gold plated necklace. The lavender and blue peasant ensemble I wore the second day, as the weatherman had correctly predicted warmer temperatures. That ensemble seemed to get more notice from people than the first, but I still got approving comments with the first. It was only about two times that I got asked if I had lost the bet.

On Sunday, I ran into Brother William in mundanes, and he invited me to his house in St. Charles about 30 miles from the faire. I first told him I would probably be too exhausted after an intense day at faire, but I left at 3:00 to get a few hours of horizontal time, and made it out there. Minstrosity was there, as well as John Paul of atthefaire.com and the women of the act he was with, the Washer Well Wenches. I had a sumptuous spaghetti dinner while I listened to the veterans exchange war stories of working at Faire. There were many complaints expressed about the management of the GSLRF, which I won't repeat because I haven't directly experienced them. I was possessed of a feeling of both revulsion and fascination, saying to myself, "I'll just remain a playtron forever", then later, "I wonder if I'll ever get a musical act together where I could get away with performing en femme (the only way I figure I could ever possibly work for money from a faire this way)".

There was plenty of good music all thru the two days, so for brevity I will pick out four moments that had my ecstatic transistor at saturation current:

Queen Bea playing her guitar and singing very skillfully out of tune: "I think vegetables should be against the law, I don't like them cooked and I don't like them raw. I don't like them alone, or with anything at all, and that's why vegetables should be against the law." I wonder if I haven't really been looking all my life for a woman like her stage character.

The sound of a djembe drum and a parody of "Aiko aiko" (very poignant to this former Deadhead) with the words "to the dungeons away", drawing me in to a performance by Smee and Blogg, "the Singing Executioners". They stood on the stage in black pants, no shirts, and black hoods, singing spoofs of a bunch of familiar songs with their own macabre lyrics, and so many bad puns that even an a.f.r. reader might die groaning. Their takeoff on "Teddy Bears Picnic" particularly touched me.

As always, Minstrosity doing "Hal and Tow", which is guaranteed to get me up dancing no matter how tired I am. I caught their first two sets on Sunday, but found them in a rather unfortunate location. The band was under a lean-to roof, but the audience was on hay bales in the open sun, except for on one side of the stage, which was next to the pub full of patrons whose voices had been made louder by their libations. Their audiences weren't as big as they might have been elsewhere under the trees.

The Pirates Royale launching into "fetch me old red doublet, bring it to me now, I'll wear it in the riggin' as they fire across the bow." They were three men and a woman singing in frequent four-part harmony, tight and resonant, and it sounded like they love the II chord as much as I do. I bought two of their CDs and was relieved and delighted to find that the live performance I heard was captured therein.

<tangential rant> This has not happened a number of times now. After ecstacizing to Boru's Ghost at OKRF, I bought their CD, took it home and listened to it, and I am sad to say that it sucks. It is the fault of their recording engineer. The performance by the musicians could have been all right, but there is reverb and bass boost to the point of distortion. I have learned to prepare myself for a shock the first time I listen to any studio recorded CD of a band I have heard live at faire. The guitar will frequently sound like it has grown to twice the size of a bullfiddle, and the singers like they've walked into a basketball gym. I have developed a preference for live recordings. Not only is the sound usually truer to what I heard at the faire, but the spirit of the performance is stronger when they are all playing together in front of an audience instead of in separate rooms with earphones on. Please, guys, I don't want to hear a lot of slick pop music mixing with cathedral reverb and rafter rumbling bass. I want to hear what I did when you were turning me on in the open air at faire. </rant>

Some other memorable performers included a man selling pickles and getting women to demonstrate various ways of eating them, capitalizing on the pickle's resemblance to a familiar part of the male body, and the man aggressively inviting patrons to throw tomatoes at his face (a dollar for one, 6 for $5) at a booth called "Veggie Justice".

This faire has a beautiful site, in a good location in a small hassle-free town just off an interstate. It has a lot of potential, some of which has already been realized, and I will return next year if I am still living within travel range of it. I would recommend it to anyone.

-Butterfly Bill

"Greetings, milady...or is it milord?...or..um...."
First Rogu'ench of Renntopia
RenGeek with pewter computer imputer
IWG reject
Solarus Juvenillius Pastritis of Sarcastica. He who Grouches
while Biting the Wax Tadpole.
"possunt vincere nothi solum si facetias tuas a te tollunt"
http://www.grapevine.net/~butterflybill/BB.htm