The Castellows Full Show Front Row Revelree Music Festival, Sarnia, Ontario Canada July 20, 2024

This was ‪@thecastellows‬ first international show, in Canada just across the border in my home province of Ontario, 3 hours west of 'the big smoke' Toronto, TheMuirClan home base :) "Good things grow in Ontario" is a classic Ontario tourism marketing tag line BTW and I'm sure that now applies to the band's fan base after this show.

With great performances like this and the other I've seen this year its really no wonder that The Castellows were just invited to play at The Grand Ole Opry! So well deserved Ellie, Lily and Powell .. and TheCastfellows!!! ‪@Opry‬ #grandoleopry

This is the first show I saw with the gals not the headliner, so it was a bit shorter set than I've seen before. Still they played catchy hits from their debut EP A Little Goes A Long Way, the recently released gem Miss America, unreleased bangers like I Was Born With a Shotgun In My Hand, and some great covers like Bruce Springsteen's I'm on Fire, House of the Rising Sun and The Beatles Come Together.

What was cool? The whole band did the No.7 Road second verse line dance! We except Brad since its had to line dance and drum at the same time :) In early shows it was only Lily and Ellie and then recently Powell stepped in too. Lily played tambourine on some songs like in some recent shows - I think that is a good vibe with a dressy outfit. Did you ever listen to the tambourine on the EP songs? Its jangly sunshine.

I was going to play my Hohner necklace harmonica with Miss America - harmonica is on the official release but is not played live. But rats! They played in the key of Db (with a capo on the first fret of Ellie's guitar), instead of C, the key of my harmonica and they key they have played in before (e.g., the Shreveport show). Oh well - next time maybe I'll bring a Db harmonica to the show to play along in any key :)

Some silly fun. My buddies and I dressed like the gals for this festival show - we picked out some iconic clothes they have worn and went shopping on Amazon over a couple months. I wore an Ellie look - a denim vest and red scarf over a white shirt. My buddy Jim had a Powell-like beige fringe vest and lots of necklaces. And my buddy Andrew had a stars and stripes top complete with red and white tassels on the bottom - that's a Lily Ralph Lauren look. We also had some red, white and blue cowboy hats and red white and blue shirts that spelled CAS-TEL-BRO, which is what we called ourselves, The Castelbros. I'll post a video of us silly bros showing some of this.

Overall it was great to have a road trip with my 'bestest' buddies going to Sarnia to see the 'bestest' band! I have not been out there since the late 1980's when my future 'home boss' worked' in chemical valley one summer. Bravo to my buds for dressing up and accommodating my sometimes excessive fandom. The next few shows will not be such as spectacle :)

I'll post individual songs later - the YouTube analytics shows folks watch shorter stuff more.

Enjoy the show!

PS - Bonus! I had a chance to chat with the Castfellows after the show - what a nice bunch of talented gents! I shared with Blake that I made the Castellow Caster guitar :) Want to see that creation? It has a pickguard signed by the ladies, custom shotgun shells for the Tone and Volume knobs, a custom Castellow CASTER logo on the headstock and some wildflowers on the body. The flowers are inspired by lyrics in Cowboy Kind of Love. Here it is: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8gJf0...

PPS - want to see the homage to classic Castellow threads my buddies and I had on? Check out the Castelbros: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9bZCAwts...