2015 held us in its clutches until the bitter end. It was such a challenging year for all of us - even though it was the year for several stupendous events - such as the birth of Maris and Drew's beautiful Amrina. 2015's list of negatives is vast, and we all arrived at the New Year's gig with a sense that things just had to get better. Our venue, Rio Nido Roadhouse, is notoriously a cold spot, and last night was a doozy. But before we could let the cold dampen our spirits, the warmth of the Roadhouse staff helped us along. Also, it's always such an "upper" to be around my fellow Thugz. I drove in and was instantly greeted by Drew's smiling face and incredible energy. Mike was set up already and working on warming up his very cold trumpet - no easy task. Andre was there early too, quietly helping and encouraging as he always does. Once Chris arrived, there was more action, and he committed himself to helping Ian load-in from a big trailer. My keyboard keys were like 88 little ice cubes all night, but that didn't stop me from banging away on them in hopes of a transformation from kinetic to radiant energy! Once we began playing, the challenges of 2015 were swept aside, and the hopes of 2016 were ushered in musically. People began to arrive, and we created our own New Year's Dead/Thugz show. Mike made sure we played several of our own tunes that will soon appear on our CD, but he also called for many Dead tunes that were traditionally played at New Year's Eve shows. It was so much fun to bring back "Estimated Prophet" and "Samson and Delilah." One fan even wanted an extended drum solo - so we whipped out "Wipe Out" - why not? "Truckin'" brought a creative dancer to the stage - it's hard to pole dance with a cold, square beam, but nevertheless... the Roadhouse had advertised the show as a masquerade - and there were many creative costumes in the house. The Roadhouse staff ran around with yummy goodies from the kitchen, and a fun time was had by all. It was hard to stop at midnight - but we did it after "Auld Lang Syne" and "Sugar Magnolia," of course. As I drove along the coast on the way home, I picked up my Philo radio station that was playing all the Dead New Year's Eve shows all night - it sounded just like what we had done that night - ah yes, the spirit continues to make folks happy and believe in good things to come. Welcome 2016. Take care. Love, Sylvia