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Last weekend, Memorial Day weekend, I want back for the second time to the Greater St. Louis Renaissance Faire, in Wentzville, 45 miles west of the arch on I-70.

Saturday morning dawned cloudy, with the temperatures in the lower 60s where it remained all day. There were times when I really felt chilly, and wished I had brought my cloak. It hinted at rain all day, with occasional sprinkles, and it got steady by about 3:30 in the afternoon. All the rest of the rain fell overnight, and Sunday morning it was still cloudy but dry by opening gate at 10. The sun came out to stay shortly after noon. Monday was perfect faire weather, sunny in the high 70s.

There had been no major changes to the site, but the gravel that had been spread on the paths had had a year to be trodden into the ground and was not nearly as sharp edged as it was last year. A rumor imparted to me by a vendor with whom I chatted was that the faire was getting a 20-year lease with the county for the parkland the site was on, making longer lasting improvements feasible. It was still the same site almost completely covered with broadleaf trees, with the only open area on top of a hill where the jousting field was. From the parking area on a narrow flat floodplain along the side of a creek, you crossed the creek over a small concrete dam with flow-thru pipes in it, and then climbed a gradual incline that curled back to the plain on top. From there you descended down the other side to a pirate ship stage.

The setting of the faire was in Lyons, France, in 1552. The cast all spoke with French accents (except for those in the camp of kilted Scotsmen who somehow managed to find their way to south France). The noblemen all wore musketeer hats with feather displays, usually over puffy pantaloons (I can't bring myself to call them "slops"; where'd that word come from?) and all classes wore high-sided boots. They had a new Roi this year, who showed a lot stronger personality than last year's king. He strolled the paths behind two halberd bearing guards and asked everyone if they were having a good day. La Reine wore a resplendent gold trimmed gown with an elaborate many-pointed ruff. The program only gave a list of guilds with names of members, identifying neither the functions of the guilds nor the parts played by the names, so I don't know the names of the people who played either of these roles.

I spent most of Sunday and a lot of Monday being a groupie to two acts:

Queen Bea, who is a short and swarthy middle-aged lady who, if you hadn't seen her act, would look like someone who would be imploring you to have some more chicken soup. I first saw her outside the gate at opening waving to everyone, talking in an accent that sounded halfway between Yiddish and Slavic, saying, "Bon jovi, bon jovi...", and "Good morni-i-i-ng" with a vibrato at the end that makes me sure that she has sometime studied classical singing. But when singing she edges her pear-shaped tones with screeches that have just the right amount of out-of-tunedness.

I never saw such a developed way of hustling up an audience. Before her act she would be out on the path with her guitar singing "Come and see the Queen Bea show, Queen Bea show" to the tune of "Merrily we roll along", and after she had gone back to the stage and started her show, she would be frequently interrupt it to call out to passers-by, identifying them by their clothing and imploring them to come and sit down. She had a song for the audience already there to sing together, "Na na na na, SIT; na na na na SIT..." When someone got up to leave, she would have us all sing "Dumb dumb da- dumb..." to the tune of the funeral march.

She always did basically the same act, but I came back to see it several times, mostly because I was trying to get down all the words to The Vegetable Song: "I think vegetables should be against the law, I don't like them cooked and I don't like them raw...", and partly because I was developing a serious crush.

There were two possible endings to the act. She would ask if we would rather hear a story or a song. If we wanted the story, she would have patrons up on the stage raising high the carrots she had given them to wave during the vegetable song, pretending to be trees, while two more people waved carnations pretending they were the fire breathed by a dragons. If we asked for the song, she would give us a screeching rendition of "Feelings" that was adequate vengeance for all the other time I have had to hear that song.

The other act was The Pyrates Royale, with their lush five part vocal harmonies, tight rhythms, love of six-eight time and waltz tempo, and stage acting seamlessly woven in and between the songs. They even covered up their fuckups in a way that left you laughing as hard as they did up there on the stage. This time I got to see Peg! with them, as I hadn't last year, and a woman with long curly blond hair and country girl face playing the fiddle, whom I hadn't seen before. (She was also the only one wearing a skirt.) They did a different set each time I heard them.

They alone were worth the motel bill in Wentzville. I am getting ready to say that they are (sorry, all other musicians on this newsgroup, I really do love you too) the primo act in all of what I've heard so far in renniedom. They cohere like a molecule, and combine their energies into something that both rocks and swings you.

There were some other musical acts there that i had seen before. 3 Pints Gone was there, Randy the guitarist was now wearing a goatee and mustache, and I didn't get to hear them that much because they were playing at mostly the same times as the Pyrates. Lilies of the Valley was still performing as only one woman singing a capella, Vince Conaway was there with his hammered dulcimer, and I met a new harpist to study so I can figure out how to play the one I've got myself, Melissa Purvis.

As long as I feel myself rich and still live in Kansas I will keep going to this faire. The lodging rates in Wentzville are a tad higher than places like Muskogee.

-Butterfly Bill

"Greetings, milady...or is it milord?...or..um...."
"So did you lose the bet?"..."No, I won it, he bet me I wouldn't"

last years GSLRF:
http://www.grapevine.net/~butterflybill/GSLRF.htm

other faire reviews:
http://www.grapevine.net/~butterflybill/RbStories.htm#renfair

my computer music
http://www.geocities.com/farfallabill/MechMus.htm