Kickin Grass 10th Anniversary show

This report on the Kickin Grass 10th Anniversary show comes from their guitarist/vocalist Lynda Dawson. Photos are from Hunter Lee Elliott at 5 X 5 Photography.

It was a thrill to take the stage and greet about 600 people in the audience at the historic Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham! We kicked off the night with Hometown in honor of our hometown fans.

Patrick Walsh, Bass Player and founder of the band, MC’d between songs, telling stories about the beginning of the band and each of the current and past bend members throughout the night.

We structured the evening to move backwards in time, so we started with a few songs off our self-titled album from 2008, then revisited tunes off our 2006 release, On The Short Rows, before heading even deeper into the 2003 songs off our first release, Backroads.

Brand new tunes were sprinkled throughout the night, and these went over especially well with the audience, most notably a 3-part harmony gospel number featuring fiddle player Pattie Hopkins on lead vocals—she wowed everyone with her singing! Former band members joined us for highlight moments throughout the evening, including a meaningful tribute to our lost loved ones with all past and current members on stage singing Morning Train at the end of the night.

The Apple Chill Cloggers also performed two full-on dance numbers at the end of the first set and came out to buckdance again during the finale, joining all the current and former band members on stage for a final fiddle tune.

It was a heartwarming treat to share the stage with everyone who has been a part of our musical family throughout the years. Jerry Brown, sound engineer for The Rubber Room in Chapel Hill, was behind the sound board, Carl Wetter and his stage hands did a wonderful job with lighting and overall production, and we had a crew on multiple cameras filming for a live DVD of the performance, which we hope to release later this year.

Instrumental in the success of the evening were both The Carolina Theatre and Pinecone – The Piedmont Council of Traditional Music – both of whom partnered with us as presenting sponsors. We couldn’t have pulled off such a special evening without them.

We left the stage that night with immense gratitude for the incredible support of our music, not just at the show, but throughout our tenure as a band—there’s no way we’d still be doing what we love without all the fans, DJs, reporters, sound guys, promoters, and genuine roots music lovers out there who keep us going.

All in all, it was an incredible night in tribute to 10 years together.