Lad of the Rings Redux Part II
Well, here’s my wrap up of the last day of the Gathering of the Fellowship.
Again, it was a much smaller scale than the first Gathering, but quite interesting.
Ted Nasmith, the famous Tolkien (and Other artist), seems to be a Beatles fan. He, his brother, and a fellow whose identity I didn’t catch put on a short concert of Beatles songs rewritten as Lord of the Rings songs by Ted himself (I think…)
The first one was a version of “Help!” which got a standing ovation; it was clever and funny. It was also their encore.
During a short break, partway through the concert I felt obliged to shout out “You guys are more popular than Frodo!”
I got a good laugh.
Later that day, Ted did a concert with just his brother on the keyboards of original LOTR-themed songs he’s written himself, some quite moody and mournful, especially about Beren and Luthien (who, as all know, were the George and Gracie of Middle-earth).
At the first Gathering, I wore a temporary tattoo of the Ring Inscription across my forehead and across the back of my head. (Blatherings link, scroll down.) It was from a bookmark provided by Atlantis-Alliance and distributed at the Gathering.
They were long out of them this time, so I went to a dollar store and bought a sheet of temporary tattoos with mainstream fantasy themes. The first day I wore a European dragon on my forehead, the second day I wore a Chinese dragon, and the third day I wore a sword with a flaming skull. Of course, I kept forgetting they were there (especially out in Public) and couldn’t understand the looks people were giving me, which were even weirder than usual.
I want to thank my friends, who I’ll just call “Tim” and “Anneli” for the delightful birthday present of the membership for the Gathering.