FitzGerald’s Statement
The 2016 Holiday Season is winding down and I gotta say, this was a blue Christmas for Brave Combo. Due to dangerous weather conditions, we were not able to make it to our annual holiday blowout at Fitzgerald’s, in Berwyn (Chicago), Illinois, on Saturday, December 17. Even as I write this, it’s hard for me to accept. For many reasons, this is one of our favorite events every year. We love the venue and Bill and his family and staff. Our Chicago fans are the best and the show always sells out. The gig is 90% fun, 10% work, or, at least, that’s how it feels. The band sounds good in the room. Frosty, the Snowman always drops by and dances a little. We feel surrounded by love. And, it’s great money. So, when we made the hard decision to not attempt the drive from St. Louis, it wasn’t made lightly. In fact, it broke our hearts, and we knew how serious this decision was for everyone who had put time and energy into the gig and for everyone who was counting on making money that night. Not showing up trickled down, in a bad way, to a lot of folks and we hate how negatively this impacted everyone involved. We still don’t know if we made the right decision, but we do know we made it home safely. Just so everyone is aware, the day before we also didn’t make it to our gig in St. Louis, because we were stuck on the highway between Kansas City and St. Louis for 13 hours, due to numerous wrecks caused by a glaze of ice and freezing temperatures. The drive should have taken a little over three hours. We left KC at noon and at 1:00 AM, the following morning, we were still an hour from our destination. I cannot describe how much the experience sucked; definitely the suckiest version of “stuck in traffic” Brave Combo has ever been through. We apologize to all and plan to make it up ASAP. I guess this was a fitting end to a rather dismal year. Here’s to 2017!
You made the right decision, tough as it was to make. Always better safe than sorry.
It will be worth the wait to see you next year. Until then, may all be well!
B
You guys rock. Stay safe we will follow.
Heartfelt and well said. You made the right decisions, my friends.
Your holiday show at Fitzgerald’s is our yearly Christmas gift to each other, we miss seeing you, but understand the circumstances. PLEASE make it back north again so your Chicago (and Wisconsin!!!) fans can polka and party with Brave Combo!
You guys are pros. Everybody will get past this. We were going to drive over but the weather said no way. Next year it will be better.
We love you guys too much to see you risk a trip in that kind of nasty weather. We’ll see you again next year.
I was sadly going to have to miss it, so I’m glad I didn’t miss anything 😉
I had seen BC before Christmas 3 consecutive years before that, it was becoming a rather nice tradition. You made the right decision, and I am looking forward to renewing the tradition in 2017. It will be even MORE special as a 2 year wait.
Greetings from STL, where it’s totally OK that you had to cancel the gigs for both STL and Fitzgeralds’s on that weekend. Safety first, as B and MLD have noted here. It’s always a tradition to watch for, that when the Fitzgerald’s date shows up, STL is almost invariably the day before. Of course, we wouldn’t mind seeing you guys earlier in the year, with less risk of snow. Maybe you’ll have to start doing the Xmas tour a bit earlier next time 🙂 .