But join us Wednesday at 5pm for Evening Prayer and Soup Supper
Or Saturday at 7pm for Bailey’s Mistake performing for the Village Coffee House!
April 5th at 7:00pm – Bailey’s Mistake performs at the Village Coffeehouse
19 Gloucester Hill Rd. New Gloucester
Tickets are $10 at the door.
Bailey’s Mistake is a not-quite-traditional, Celtic-inspired, four-piece folk band from Maine. The group mixes traditional music from Ireland, Scotland and Newfoundland with brand new songs about contemporary life in New England. Bailey’s Mistake’s pulsing sound is driven by bass, drums and guitar and topped off with hearty vocal harmonies and thrilling bagpipe and whistle tunes.
Bailey’s Mistake is made up of four seasoned musicians who all went to the same rural high school in Maine — aptly named Bonny Eagle. Collectively, they have about 110 years of touring musical experience.
Troy R. Bennett plays guitar, sings soulful lead and writes most of the band’s original songs. Travis Cote learned to play the bagpipes at 10 and thrills audiences with his rhythmic, majestic sound. Dean Clegg is the band’s inventive percussionist and oversees all technical aspects of every show. Rob Babson plays bass, sings delicate harmonies and is the band’s musical leader.
The band takes its name from a legend told for generations along the Maine coast. Back in the 19th century, there was a certain ship captain named Bailey. He was trying to guide his vessel safely around West Quoddy Head Lighthouse and into Lubec Harbor. Unfortunately, it was a foggy night and he missed. Instead of safe harbor, Bailey ran aground in a shallow, rocky inlet just south of the lighthouse.
But rather than face the wrath of the ship’s furious owners in Boston, Bailey and his crew unloaded the lumber they had on board, built houses in the cove and settled down with several local ladies.
To this day, on most good maps, that little harbor is simply labeled “Bailey’s Mistake.”
Watch a clip of Bailey’s Mistake here.
Join us every Wednesday in Lent for evening prayer and a simple soup supper. We will gather in the Vestry at 5pm and share a brief time of prayer, song and silence, followed by a simple supper of soup and bread. There is no cost for supper and everyone is welcome to join us. We plan to have a vegetarian soup each week, and most of the soups are also gluten free. Thanks to Two Mums Kitchen in Gray for supplying the soup for our gatherings.
Our Coffeehouse Performers for March will be Time Zones. Time Zones is an innovative trio that knows no boundaries – music from Balkan, Latin, Turkish, and Greek and jazz traditions, original jazz and middle eastern music, and covers of Beatles and Grateful Dead songs are all thrown into the stew that Gary Wittner (7 string guitar), Steve Gruverman (clarinet and sax) and Eric LaPerna (hand percussion) have cooked up. Watch a clip of their performance here.
Bring a friend and join us at 7:00pm on March 1st. Tickets are $10 at the door and refreshments will be available.
Our February performer for the Village Coffeehouse is Pine Tarnations! A rollicking traditional yet contemporary blue grass band.
The performance will take place on February 1st at 7:00pm. Tickets are $10 at the door and refreshments will be available.
In the summer of 2024, fellow New Gloucester residents, and former band mates in the band Bald Hill, guitarist Renee St. Jean and mandolinist Ben DeTroy yearned to get back to more
roots Bluegrass. Renee knew a fiddler Emily Wiederkehr (Portland) and bassist Ben Jensen (Freeport) from a weekly jam in Yarmouth. Ben knew a banjo/dobro player, Chuck Peters,
another New Gloucesterite. As soon as they got together, realized they had something special, both musically and interpersonally. They all looked at each other and wondered aloud, “What in
Tarnations!”?! Thus was born The Pine Tarnations!, a rollicking traditional yet contemporary Bluegrass band.
Shake off the winter blues with friends and good music!
19 Gloucester Hill Rd, New Gloucester.
Join us for one of these special Christmas worship services:
Make a donation to our December Mission Collection for Maine Needs:
We’re excited to welcome the Coastal Winds Community Band back to First Congregational Church for a night of holiday music and cheer.
Tickets are not required. Donations for our Fuel Assistance Fund and non-perishable food for the New Gloucester Food Pantry will be accepted at the door.
The Coastal Winds Community Band, under the direction of Brendan Krueger, is based in Freeport, Maine, and comprises over 50 dedicated and talented woodwind, brass, and percussion instrumentalists. Membership is on a volunteer basis and includes professional musicians, business people, and retirees from the Mid Coast area, as well as a few high school students.
Join us on November 2nd for a toe-tapping good time with the Delta Knights. We’ll leave room for dancing!
Tickets are $10 at the door. Bring a friend!
Join us for a fall book discussion of “Hope: A User’s Manual” by MaryAnn McKibben Dana.
We will meet Wednesdays from 4:30pm-5:30pm starting on September 25th.
If you would like to join us via ZOOM rather than in the building, send us a message.
About the book
What hope is, what hope isn’t, and how to find it in hopeless times.
How do we cultivate hope to face each day? How do we find the energy to persevere, knowing things don’t always work out OK, no matter what the platitudes say? How do we pursue the work of justice, knowing that the task is too big for any of us?
This book addresses these questions. It’s MaryAnn’s attempt to write herself back into a sense of hope after a grueling few years of life and world events.
One thing is certain: real hope demands that we do something with it. That we live it out. That we use hope to participate in a bigger story playing out behind the bleak world we see on the news or in our social media feeds every day.
