My husband has been traveling a lot for work lately. I don’t know how he keeps ending up in jobs that require him to be away from home at least two weeks a month, but that seems to be our reality.

It certainly makes me appreciate the old adage, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The cat and I are always thrilled when he’s finally home.

Given how much he’s gone, I know he prefers we have some downtime the weeks and weekends he’s home. This is hard for me because after I’ve been working all week, I’m ready to get out and explore on the weekend! Thankfully we’ve struck a pretty fair balance of spending our days out and about and our evenings generally in.

Although we don’t have a TV, we do love spending our evenings in catching up on a few favorite shows on Hulu, one of which is The Voice. We both love music and enjoy watching the talent, remembering awesome songs to add to our set lists, and trying to decide who will win the season.

A few seasons ago we were both obsessed with Laith Al-Saadi, who not only had a tremendous voice, but was an incredible guitarist and entertainer. We looked forward to his performances each week, and we were THRILLED to find out he was touring with a stop in Seattle!

Happy Hour at Senor Moose in Ballard

We almost never do things on weeknights, but we were both willing to make an exception for this show. Brian flew home mid-day from the East Coast, went home to finish some work and then met me in Ballard for happy hour and dinner at Senor Moose Cafe.

Given it was my first time seeing him in several days, we had lots to catch up on and enjoyed the back room of the restaurant. Our food was really good, I thoroughly enjoyed my margarita, and Brian is now obsessed with some crazy drink they make called a Cervecerita, which is a sort of margarita with a splash of beer and salsa. It was not for me, but he loves sweet and spicy drinks so it was a perfect pairing for him!

Live Music at Tractor Tavern in Ballard

The door at Tractor Tavern opened at 6:30 p.m. so our timing was perfect. We walked a couple blocks over to the venue, admiring the old warehouse district feel of all the red brick buildings around us, and got in a short line to enter.

We have been looking for an intimate concert venue since we moved here, and we loved Tractor Tavern. It holds about 200 people, is primarily standing room only, and is so unassuming. The crowd had a great vibe, and we took it all in while we waited for the music to begin.

As much as we loved watching Laith perform on The Voice, we were infinitely more impressed experiencing his talent in person. His band is incredible as well– we were blown away by the drummer’s solos– but Laith is an absolute phenom on the guitar.

He played quite a bit of his original work, and he masterfully covered some of the greats, from Cream to Jimi Hendrix, to Bob Segar. The whole concert was just amazing–he played straight through and brought down the house with his encore of Whipping Post.

In addition to a few pictures, I did capture some video of one of his originals, Gone. It doesn’t do his guitar playing justice, but it certainly shows off his songwriting and singing ability.

It was an incredible evening of music, and I was so happy Brian was able to be home so we could experience it together.

We have such an appreciate for his talent– if you have a chance to see him in your area, do not miss it!