K&W at Castille - 10June2006

After the resounding success of our gig at the Elementary Arts Academy last month, I asked Acacia's teacher if they'd like us to come down and do the same at her school. She loved the idea, got permission from the principal, and we were all set up for the Friday before the last week of school.

We played multiple lunch shifts again, 1&2, then 3&4, and then the 5th grade, so we started out with our usual kids' stuff, but, based on our experience at OCEAA, we had some rock 'n' roll ready for the bigger kids. I even brought along my electric guitar.

I was a total blast, of course, though not much of an artistic triumph. I was pretty over-excited (i.e., mildly panicked) the whole time -- did some songs too fast, the rest *way* too fast, and sang miserably. One highlight was when I started singing "Fun, Fun, Fun" to the tune of "Roll Over Beethoven" -- an honest mistake since they're the same song (in the guitar), but still...

The kids went pretty crazy for it, I'm afraid. We had them all packed up next to us (good thing the janitor put out some traffic cones!), dancing, screaming, bouncing up and down, and shouting out suggestions for the next song. We got asked to "Do some AC/DC!" a lot -- how are these kids hearing hard rock from 15 years before they were born?!?

But, not so coincidentally, we had worked up AC/DC's "Long Way To the Top", which was featured in the movie "School of Rock". We saved it for the end, and I completely botched it up. It was too fast, badly sung, *way* too much distortion on my guitar (I over-drove my little amp and it sounded great, but when I started the actual song, I played louder and that over-drove the big amp. Distorted distortion doesn't really work.), and to top it off, during Warren's big solo, I stepped on the cable and unplugged myself, leaving Warren truly *solo*. I scrambled it back together, and faded back in, and he shouted out when we were about to hit the next "thing" so we made it through, but I don't know how it could have gone much worse.

But they loved it! Kids are a great audience, especially when you're a not-so-great band. Acacia came home and said that "a bajillion" kids came up to her to tell her to thank us, and/or to ask "was that really your dad?" I guess she'll be famous, at least for the last 4 days of school. Good thing they took it as "cool dad" rather than "geek dad".

We had a great time, too, and will certainly consider doing more of these, even after Acacia moves on to middle school. And, I invited the YMCA Princess Program Director to come by, and she thought we were "wonderful", and that the kids "love you guys and you're great with them". I'm working up to offering to come play at YMCA functions, picnics, etc.