^{Bye bye 2022. Hello 2023!
Tricks rocked into the new year with our fans and friends in downtown Allegan. The Eagles club knows how to do it right, with low drink prices, a potluck buffet, a huge dance floor, and a brand new sound system (thanks to Scott Chenard). This year the house was more packed than most years have been, although the stroke of midnight was a bit lonely. Most of the crowd wandered down to the Roverfront, where the city hosted a Ball-Drop and Fireworks. Happily, everyone came back to the Eagles to finish out the night with Tricks. This year had an unusually high number of Tricks friends and fans, with lots and lots of people giving Tricks the love and dancing the night away.} 

This long story keeps getting longer. The annual Ugly Sweater party in Fennville started back in 2017. We celebrated the 10th anniversary of Phelpstock, our up-north party at Tommy & Tara Phelps' property in the woods east of Irons. Having just moved to Fennville from their original home in South Haven, Tommy said, "we need to do a down-south party during the winter, for our friends who can't make it up north for the summer party". The first couple winter / Christmas / Ugly Sweater parties were at Tommy & Tara's barn, a bit south of Fennville. In 2019 the Fennville VFW offered their place for the Phelps annual Ugly Sweater party, and Steve finally got talked into playing drums for us. That made it a full-blown Tricks Party! We had to skip 2020, so that makes this the 5th annual Ugly Sweater Party. This year was just as fun as ever. Lots of eating, drinking, and dancing. We gave out bottles of booze for the top 3 Ugly Sweaters. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making it into the "Top 3" for Tricks Party-of-the-Year 2022.

Tricks played here once before, about ten years ago or so. I should look it up in these Tricks History pages. Yeah, maybe later. Anyway, I remember a packed house, lots of dancers, and an elevator that took several trips to bring in our gear. That all turned out the same this time around. A great fun crowd with lots of Holiday spirit on hand. When we were here last time, I remember having a couple dozen old Trendway pals here. This time, no such luck. I guess we got our share of Trendway buddies at the Wax Bash two weeks ago (see below). This time, it was more family with our middle brother Larry and his friends, along with cousin Steve Weideman of "Catfish And The Man" fame. Steve Weideman is a longtime musical celebrity in the Grand Haven area, and he was the one who suggested that the Eagles give Tricks a call for the Turkey Eve party. I expected more dancers, but the dance floor was never completely empty, and there was plenty of hooting and hollering to make up for the lack of dancers. Most of the crowd were what we call "Tricks virgins" who kept coming up and telling us how great we were and "where are you from"? Etc. We appreciate the appreciation. Krystal got a little scared when a lady came up to her and grabbed her by the shoulder, looking her straight in the eye, all serious and everything. Krys was even more worried when the lady started talking very sternly, "I'm the day time manager here". Krys is thinking, oh no, what are we doing wrong? "You guys are great and I'm telling all my friends that they need to get you back here very soon". Okay! That's what I'm talking about.