Retreat Weekend 3.0

This past weekend, The Townies hit the road for our annual summer retreat featuring some fun in the sun, singing and of course some group bonding. This year, the group decided to combine the previous two retreat locations to get the best of both worlds over the three days and when all was said and done with, another epic weekend was in the books! Friday the group was spilt into a few different cars, the early car that left for Cape Cod in the morning and the late car that departed for the cape after the work day. The early cars were able to scope out the beach scene for a few hours before heading into Hyannis to check out the Hyannis Sound perform. This was the second consecutive year that FT went to a HS show and for the second year in row, they delivered! We stuck around afterwards to talk to a few of the guys and let them know we loved the set and also attempted to try and recruit a few of the members that we found are moving to Boston in the fall. Hopefully they’ll think about auditioning.

Following the show we headed next door to Tommy Doyles Irish Pub for some drinks and dancing. Talk about a tale of two bars. The front of Tommy Doyles had a DJ spinning with club-style beats while the back bar had a 90’s cover band rocking out. We started in the front but brought our own dance party to the back. The late car was able to meet up with us here and our retreat weekend was officially underway!

Night one we stayed in Mashpee at Meg’s house. A big shout out and thank you to the Reichel’s for housing us for the evening!

Saturday the original plan had been to do a beach day but early morning showers and cloud cover made it a lazy morning where we stayed in, cooking an epic breakfast while entertaining ourselves with a cappella tunes on the surround sound system and some board games, including a highly competitive 4-way scrabble match between Dan, Katya, Sarah & Philipp.

One of the reasons we decided to retreat in Cape Cod was a gig request we received for the same weekend of our retreat. Last December at our Bill’s Bar show we raffled off a free 30 minute performance and the winner was Dan’s sister, Laura. She asked us to perform and cash in her prize this weekend at a house party for a group of women that identify as “The Herd.” The Herd is made up of a group of Emmanuel College graduates from the class of 1976 that has stayed in close touch for over 35 years. Each year the group gets together for a Herd Thanksgiving and this year decided to get together for a Herd Family reunion where husbands and children were also invited to join the party.

We had so much fun performing for these ladies who were one of the best audiences we’ve ever had, and we’re not just saying that because Dan’s mom and aunt are a part of The Herd. When you agree to a private home show, you never know what you’re getting yourself into. Sometimes you’re just the background noise and the guests will stop and listen for a song before continuing on to the next open bar stop. And then there was the time when we had our clients yelling at us mid-song requesting that we sing Stairway to Heaven. We’ve seen a lot of audiences that just don’t appreciate the musical product we’re putting out there but from our very first sound to our final note, The Herd was on the edge of their seats, intently listening and grooving to the music. It was awesome and we totally fed off of their energy. You know that a group is really into your set when we see some tears and after Joe sang Dreamin’ with a Broken Heart the tissues most definitely came out around the room.

The Herd was a great audience and after learning about their history, Fermata Town was joking after the show that there is a strong chance that in 35 years we’ll be throwing similar parties because that’s the type of friendships being in the group has created.

Following the set, we mingled for about an hour, chatting it up with the Herd which was also a lot of fun! These ladies were definitely party-goers and it showed. One guest at the party that had some of the guys drooling was longtime Boston Globe Sports Columnist Danny Shaughnessy. Overall, it was just a blast and we’re so happy that everything worked out, allowing us to perform!

We hit the road for night two which would be in Norton, MA at Melissa’s home. This was the location of our first-ever retreat in 2010 so we decided to return for some more good times. Much of this night was reminiscent to two years ago, just some different faces. There was singing, there were ICING’s, there was some Running Man (an epic pool table game) and of course some late night swimming.  A big shout out and thank you to the Abreu’s for putting up with us. Again.

Sunday morning (well mid-day), we cooked up an epic meal featuring breakfast tacos. Following the good eats, we took to the back yard for some sun and more pool action. It was the type of R&R many of us needed and the day certainly did not disappoint.

We decided to cap the weekend off with a showing of The Dark Knight Rises at the Jordan’s Furniture IMAX theater. If you haven’t seen it already, we’d recommend going to see it at the IMAX! Talk about being right there!

All in all, I think it’s safe to safe that Fermata Town Retreat 3.0 was an huge success! Thank you to all who made it possible!