Yes, Tampa sure had a heatwave this past weekend… The Alex Meixner Band played a Friday night dance at the Holiday Polish American Pulaski Club and it was a cooker, even inside! A nice time playing for an intimate audience of Polish polka dancers/fans for us… it was particularly fun to pull out some old dance repertoire that I haven’t had the chance to play in ages…. In addition to the regular guys in the band, Matt Zebroski and Matt Tolentino, we had some guests join us on stage—Pan Juzef-Joe Oberaitis played some accordion and sang with the illustrious polka dj/drummer –“Wackie Jackie” and a local sax player, Jerry Krik joined in the fun. Those that came seemed to enjoy themselves so we hope to be back during snowbird season for Ernie and his fine staff.
Our main gig for the weekend of course was WMNF’s Tropical Heatwave Festival. If you’ve never been to this extravaganza of music, you owe it to yourself to get to Ybor City for one great night of musical mayhem. Over 40 bands on 8 stages centered around the Cuban Club—with a very wide range of music was a great experience. We got a great reception from the crowd there for our set early in the festivities and really enjoyed sharing the stage with Christabel and the Jons, a tremendous acoustic swing group from TN and Lumiscent Orchestrii, an awesome gypsy-esque group from New York. Hope to have the opportunity to play again for Heatwave, as well as hear these great groups! I just wish I could’ve stuck around to catch more of the music—but travel schedules and exhaustion sometimes impede my ability to hang after our gigs….. the sacrifices of keeping it all rolling, eh? It’s all good though… a few weeks off before heading back up to Panama City Beach….
Stay happy y’all!
alex