Fairies, Drums and Fire Dancers at the Harvest Festival

Here’s a short video that I created from the Harvest Festival from Sept 18. We arrived – were greeted by a beautiful fairy who sprinkled fairy dust on us – walked around – watched belly dancing – performed our music for about an hour and then stayed to watch the amazing fire dancers!
-Annie

Phil’s 15 Year Performer Award from Bread and Roses

On August 29, Phil was given an award from Bread and Roses for 15 years as a volunteer performer. “Bread and Roses is dedicated to uplifting the human spirit by providing free, live, quality shows to people who live in institutions or are otherwise isolated from society.” Bread and Roses , legendary in the San Francisco bay area was founded by Mimi Farina, Joan Baez’s late sister, in 1974.

Phil with his Award!

Before Hobbyhorse, Phil played in a band called Jammin’ Salmon. With Jammin’ Salmon, Phil played many many Bread and Roses shows. For the last few years, Hobbyhorse has been volunteering to play in psychiatric hospitals, VA hospitals and other institutions. Just yesterday we played a show for the patients at Laguna Honda hospital in San Francisco. These shows are so rewarding. Sometimes it is difficult to see people who are suffering. But it feels really great when they show us how happy they are to have us there, and to see how the music touches them.

Hobbyhorse at the Stone City Benefit

On August 21 we performed for a benefit to raise money for the Stone City Pagan Sanctuary.
About Stone City: “Stone City is a Pagan retreat center located in the wild hills of California’s Diablo Range, just outside the San Francisco Bay Area, on 100 acres of land. We are dedicated to creating sacred spaces for ritual, worship of Pagan deities, and for community gatherings. We have a strong focus on living sustainably and in alignment with natural cycles and systems.”

Angelic Light Shining on Annie

Phil, Annie, Kelly (Hobbyhorse)

The Mandola & Guitars

Phil Tuning Up

Snake Dancer

We’ve been to Stone City three times in the last few years to attend and perform at the Ancient Ways Festival . We were thrilled to be able to help Stone City raise money!
Above are pictures of Hobbyhorse at the benefit which was held at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, CA. The last picture is of an amazing dancer who dances with snakes. See that snake on her head. It’s real!

There were also vendors with hand made crafts, gorgeous belly dancers, more awesome snake dancers and cool trancy music from Land of the Blind.

Even if you weren’t at the benefit you can still donate to or help out Stone City.