Shocking! Last week at SCP, the place was near-empty, and dead silent. I expected about the same this week -- in fact, I was counting on it, to facilitate continued work on our "Live" CD. But, there were *lots* of people there, and they were in a mood to listen, too. I'd say it was the best audience we've ever had at that store. Lots of nice folks, listening attentively, asking for songs off the list, and even tipping a fair bit.
There was a friendly lady with a cowboy hat and 9-ish-year-old son, who asked for a song, and right after that, I looked over at her (she was pretty far away), and she mouthed "Puff, the Magic Dragon" at me, which, surprisingly, I understood perfectly clearly. She was apparently trying not to embarrass her son, or maybe she just didn't want to shout across the whole café (again). It was fun, though. Didn't know I could read lips.
It was strange/stupid to be disappointed (sorta) about having a decent audience for a change. My playing was pretty good, voice OK (but too tired too soon -- I think I'm warming up in the car too much). My guitar was sounding better than ever, 'cuz I took some of Warren's advice and tweaked the tone knobs to better places. I'd basically had them set to "all middle", since I'd stopped using the under-saddle pickup and have been using the internally mounted mic, and didn't realize that I'd never experimented with 'em. Even with the "default" tone knob settings it was way better, but with a little tuning, it sounds really good now.
I guess we managed to get two of the songs we "need" for the CD done right, but not all of them. I made plenty of mistakes, but some of the coffee staff at that store are particularly insensitive to trying to keep quiet while the band is playing, so there are some songs with nasty noises in them.
Which leaves us with one more chance before I reach my patience limit (and we have a three-week lay-over 'til the next gig) -- this coming Saturday we're back at SCP, with, presumably, the dead silent "recording studio" atmosphere.
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