Our last full day at sea.
We took it easy this morning as we know that after the BNL show tonight, the New Odds will be having their “All-star” jam up on the lido deck. Last year it was completely spontaneous and lasted well past 2am. We are expecting the same this year.
I ,(Stan), got up pretty early to walk around the ship. I wanted to take
some pictures of the ship with not a lot of people around. A lot of the places I went, I was the only one around except for the Carnival cleaning staff. I had a little breakfast at the lido buffet and then went to see if Amy was up yet. It was around 9:30 and she was up and ready to go. I went with her to breakfast and then we walked the ship a little. Our first scheduled event was the Meet the Managers panel at 11 in the Adriatic lounge. This was a cool 1hr Q&A session with BNL’s management including their touring manager (and 6th BNL member) Fin. This was very cool. It was like a State of the Union of BNL. We also got to hear some stories about the band from behind the scenes. The panel was very informative. The biggest thing that I took from the panel was that BNL is an independent band now as they are not on a major label and that we, the fans, are their “record executives”. Not being on a major label allows BNL to be more free with their music and allows them to do a lot more of what THEY want to do with their music. Doing cruises and touring when they want is just a small part of that.
After the managers’ panel we grabbed lunch. After lunch was the songwriters’ panel in the Caribbean Lounge at 1pm. This was a special event where Sixthman had a lottery to gain entrance. A few weeks before the cruise I found out that I won 2 tickets for this. When we got there we sat about half way back on the floor. Last year they had a songwriters’ panel and it was only Ed and Steve from BNL. This year it was said that it would not only be BNL but also include members of other bands on the ship as well. This year’s panel was (sitting from right to left)
Kurt Swinghammer, Jason Plumb, Craig Northey from the New Odds, Ed, Steve, Sarah Harmer, Alan Doyle from Great Big Sea & Boothby Graffoe (an English comedian and singer/songwriter). I was expecting this to be pretty good but this was definitely one of the top 5 best moments of the whole trip! They were scheduled to play from 1 to 2:30 but ended up enjoying themselves they played until around 3:30! I think they all started being very timid but once they got into it, it was outstanding. Each person on stage sang a song starting from the right with Kurt Swinghammer. It was just him and his guitar. Then Jason Plumb sang one of his songs. It continued through each person in order on stage. When they got through everyone they went back to Kurt and went through every one again. We figured this would be it but they all said "lets do another round." Each song was great! It just keep getting better and better. It was very cool to see all these talented musicians play their favorite songs they wrote. Even more fun was watching the other musicians on stage in awe of each other.
When the songwriters’ panel was over around 3:30 we headed up to the Lido deck to see Harvey Danger. On our way we stopped past the Black & Red Seas Lounge as there would be show after show all night in there starting at 4:00 with Brian MacMillian. There was a huge crowd waiting to get in (this was one of the smallest, but most popular, venues on the ship). I guess this is where everybody who wasn’t going to the BNL show tonight was going. We were glad to be going to the BNL show as we didn’t want to wait in the crowd. We finally made it the Lido deck, had a late lunch, and were pleasantly surprised to see Harvey Danger hadn't started yet. They were late and didn’t start until 4. We ended up being right up front for the show and they were great! They played for over an hour and half and the last song they played was their big hit and my favorite song “Flagpole Sitta”.
We took it easy this morning as we know that after the BNL show tonight, the New Odds will be having their “All-star” jam up on the lido deck. Last year it was completely spontaneous and lasted well past 2am. We are expecting the same this year.
I ,(Stan), got up pretty early to walk around the ship. I wanted to take
some pictures of the ship with not a lot of people around. A lot of the places I went, I was the only one around except for the Carnival cleaning staff. I had a little breakfast at the lido buffet and then went to see if Amy was up yet. It was around 9:30 and she was up and ready to go. I went with her to breakfast and then we walked the ship a little. Our first scheduled event was the Meet the Managers panel at 11 in the Adriatic lounge. This was a cool 1hr Q&A session with BNL’s management including their touring manager (and 6th BNL member) Fin. This was very cool. It was like a State of the Union of BNL. We also got to hear some stories about the band from behind the scenes. The panel was very informative. The biggest thing that I took from the panel was that BNL is an independent band now as they are not on a major label and that we, the fans, are their “record executives”. Not being on a major label allows BNL to be more free with their music and allows them to do a lot more of what THEY want to do with their music. Doing cruises and touring when they want is just a small part of that.After the managers’ panel we grabbed lunch. After lunch was the songwriters’ panel in the Caribbean Lounge at 1pm. This was a special event where Sixthman had a lottery to gain entrance. A few weeks before the cruise I found out that I won 2 tickets for this. When we got there we sat about half way back on the floor. Last year they had a songwriters’ panel and it was only Ed and Steve from BNL. This year it was said that it would not only be BNL but also include members of other bands on the ship as well. This year’s panel was (sitting from right to left)
Kurt Swinghammer, Jason Plumb, Craig Northey from the New Odds, Ed, Steve, Sarah Harmer, Alan Doyle from Great Big Sea & Boothby Graffoe (an English comedian and singer/songwriter). I was expecting this to be pretty good but this was definitely one of the top 5 best moments of the whole trip! They were scheduled to play from 1 to 2:30 but ended up enjoying themselves they played until around 3:30! I think they all started being very timid but once they got into it, it was outstanding. Each person on stage sang a song starting from the right with Kurt Swinghammer. It was just him and his guitar. Then Jason Plumb sang one of his songs. It continued through each person in order on stage. When they got through everyone they went back to Kurt and went through every one again. We figured this would be it but they all said "lets do another round." Each song was great! It just keep getting better and better. It was very cool to see all these talented musicians play their favorite songs they wrote. Even more fun was watching the other musicians on stage in awe of each other.When the songwriters’ panel was over around 3:30 we headed up to the Lido deck to see Harvey Danger. On our way we stopped past the Black & Red Seas Lounge as there would be show after show all night in there starting at 4:00 with Brian MacMillian. There was a huge crowd waiting to get in (this was one of the smallest, but most popular, venues on the ship). I guess this is where everybody who wasn’t going to the BNL show tonight was going. We were glad to be going to the BNL show as we didn’t want to wait in the crowd. We finally made it the Lido deck, had a late lunch, and were pleasantly surprised to see Harvey Danger hadn't started yet. They were late and didn’t start until 4. We ended up being right up front for the show and they were great! They played for over an hour and half and the last song they played was their big hit and my favorite song “Flagpole Sitta”.
Since the next few hours of shows were in the crowded-and-no-room-available Black and Red Lounge we fortunately had some extra time so we went to our room to pack. We decided to take advantage of the 'self-assist' debarking which means we will carry off our own luggage instead of having Carnival's porters take our bags off. The only disadvantage of this is that self assist is the first off the boat starting at 7am, so we needed to have everything ready before going out for the night since we weren't planning to get much sleep with the BNL show and the All-star jam late tonight. When we had everything packed, we were out for the night. We finally saw a full Checkerbaord Guy act. He is a juggler that was onboard last year as well. We love him! Then we caught the very end of Joe Pisapia’s show in the Adriatic Lounge. He is the guitarist from Guster and his band was made up with guys from Guster and BNL. I liked the 2 songs we heard. Then we went up to the Lido deck to see Great Big Sea. This is the 2nd time we saw them and they are really great.
Just before they ended we left to go see Gaelic Storm in the Adriatic. It was too crowded so we just went right over to the Caribbean Lounge to see the BNL show that started
at 11. We were in just about the same seats that we were in for the Double Dippers show on Sunday. This was one of the best BNL shows we ever saw! They were really having a good time on stage and it transferred to the audience. During their song “Old Apartment” they asked a kid from the crowd that they met on the cruise to play drums. The kid was 12 and it ROCKED! It was one of the coolest onstage moments ever seeing BNL. Another memorable moment was when Andy Creggan joined Ed for a very moving version of "Am I the Only One". They played for over 2 hours and the set was full of rarely played songs. After their usual encore they came out to play one more song like they did on Tuesday. They joked that the only reason why everyone was cheering after the regular encore was the crowd knew BNL came back for another encore for the previous show.
Just before they ended we left to go see Gaelic Storm in the Adriatic. It was too crowded so we just went right over to the Caribbean Lounge to see the BNL show that started
at 11. We were in just about the same seats that we were in for the Double Dippers show on Sunday. This was one of the best BNL shows we ever saw! They were really having a good time on stage and it transferred to the audience. During their song “Old Apartment” they asked a kid from the crowd that they met on the cruise to play drums. The kid was 12 and it ROCKED! It was one of the coolest onstage moments ever seeing BNL. Another memorable moment was when Andy Creggan joined Ed for a very moving version of "Am I the Only One". They played for over 2 hours and the set was full of rarely played songs. After their usual encore they came out to play one more song like they did on Tuesday. They joked that the only reason why everyone was cheering after the regular encore was the crowd knew BNL came back for another encore for the previous show.Once the show ended we made a quick run up 4 flights of stairs and across the whole ship to get to the Lido deck for the New Odds All-star jam. Just as I had figured, there were a lot of people there. Everybody was talking about this show whereas there were at least half as many people there last year. The New Odds started playing at 12 and by the time we got there after the BNL show it was past 1am and Acid Wish was on stage. Acid Wish are the New Odds’ alter egos and Acid Wish/New Odds are by far the heaviest band on the ship. As expected they were rocking out and shortly the crowd got bigger as the BNL crowd started showing up. Soon other musicians showed up. I think the first was Ed from BNL. Soon just about every member of every band on the ship were on stage. It was wild! Once the other musicians started coming on stage they never finished a song. 
Someone would start playing some song like “Crazy Train” by Black Sabbath and then sing/play a couple lines then change to “My Generation” by the Who, then “Shake It Up” by the Cars and so on. The more random or funny the song was, the better. They must have played parts of over 100 songs. It ended up as being like one long song that lasted until 4:45am when Steve announced that the Carnival staff asked them to wrap it up as we were coming into Miami and the stage had to be taken down and all of the equipment needed to be packed. Sure we were tired but it was the last night of the cruise and we just saw a great BNL show and a wild and crazy 3 hour jam.
Someone would start playing some song like “Crazy Train” by Black Sabbath and then sing/play a couple lines then change to “My Generation” by the Who, then “Shake It Up” by the Cars and so on. The more random or funny the song was, the better. They must have played parts of over 100 songs. It ended up as being like one long song that lasted until 4:45am when Steve announced that the Carnival staff asked them to wrap it up as we were coming into Miami and the stage had to be taken down and all of the equipment needed to be packed. Sure we were tired but it was the last night of the cruise and we just saw a great BNL show and a wild and crazy 3 hour jam. We went to our room and since we were packed we forced ourselves to sleep for about an hour because in addition to debarkation we also have a long drive to Orlando tomorrow.
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