December 7, 2019

Rayland Baxter

Sutton Foster

Kathy

Coast Is Clear 3

Three years ago, just after Hurricane Irma devastated large swaths of the Florida Keys, our friends over at Coast organized a benefit concert to raise funds and awareness of the issues that the storm had wrought across our community. While the recovery has been on-going since that time, even though much has been restored and repaired, Coast has continued the tradition and this year hosted their third annual “Coast Is Clear” benefit festival.

Susto

This year the events were held at venues as diverse as the Green Parrot, Andy’s Cabana in Bahama Village and a wonderful and underutilized venue, the grounds of the Key West Lighthouse. I had been recovering from as nasty flu-like thing, but I still made the effort to head out to a late night show that kicked off the festival at the Green Parrot where famed guitarist Tim Reynolds and his band TR3 were the first out of town band to perform as part of the festival. Reynolds serves as lead guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band and was in town as part of his solo/ side project playing to a raucous late night crowd at the Parrot.

Tim Reynolds

He is an amazing guitarist, though his style is not exactly my favorite, you have to appreciate the amazing skill and dexterity that he plays with, it was just another example of the type of talent that Key West has been getting so much better at bringing in these days. The show was a benefit for my once upon a time employers Reef Relief and my friend Dora was working the door collecting donations.

Tim Reynolds

With December upon us, the holiday season in Key West is kicking into high gear. Key West always seems to go a little Christmas crazy, perhaps to make up for the lack of cold, snow and other wintery holiday conditions. After taking a break last year, Kathy was back at it in earnest this year as far as decorating the house for the holidays. This year we discovered some cool new holiday display items, large light-up chickens that are only available at Tractor Supply Stores, meaning Kathy stocked up on her recent trip to Colorado and New Mexico since we have none of those stores in our area.

Kathy's decorations

The house looks amazing once again and this year I went ahead and entered her in the annual holiday lights contest sponsored by Old Town Trolleys and Key West Electric. This year for the first time the winner will be determined by a popular vote, so if you are so inclined, we would really appreciate your helping us out and voting for us (the house with the chickens on the roof), using the link below. You can vote once every 24 hours so vote early and often and help us recognize all the hard work that Kathy put in this year.

Lisa

As part of Key West’s holiday fun, the Key West Bight sponsored a Pet Photos with Santa evening and we took Jack over to get his taken and to explore the wonderful decorations that the Bight Board has added to the Historic Seaport area. It is always one of the best areas of town and they did another fantastic job this year.

Next it was a double whammy of music, first we had the distinct pleasure of seeing current Broadway sensation Sutton Foster perform at the Tennessee Williams Theater as part of their annual entertainment series, she was truly fantastic and now I can’t wait to see her again next year on Broadway where she will star opposite Hugh Jackman in the revival of “The Music Man”. She has won two Tony awards and it is easy to see why.

Sutton and Sussanah

Next up it was to the amazing, intimate venue at the Key West lighthouse to see the second portion of the Coast Is Clear festival with headliners Susto and Rayland Baxter. I had never seen Susto before and he was terrific, fresh off a star turn at this year’s Newport Folk Festival, he delivered a powerhouse performance that for me was the highlight of the festival. The setting at the lighthouse was so fantastic and both performers delivered what was a wonderful evening of music. I sure hope that this is the first of many such shows at the Key West Lighthouse, which was open during the performance and offers amazing views of the island.

Rayland Baxter