KC at Costa Mesa - 28April2007

I always have trepidations before a solo gig, but once I get started (always the hardest part), I get over it and have a great time. There were lots of nice people there this time, and I set up a connection right away, and got lots of requests and dialog with several people.

Eventful night. I'm still not over my throat trouble, but I managed, mostly. Following, kinda, Warren's example, I set up the video camera with what I thought was a newly charged battery, but it kept going off after a minute or two. I didn't know what was wrong, so I kept trying to get it to keep going, but was reluctant to keep stopping the show to go out and mess with it too much. At 9:10 or so I finally put in the spare battery (duh), and it ran fine from there.

But not for long. At 9:45, right in the middle of the last dramatic heartfelt chorus of "Jersey Girl", the amp just went "click!", and was dead. That was an interesting feeling -- the sudden "silence" of being abruptly acoustic-only.

I turned it off and back on and tinkered with various things, but it was a goner. So, since I thought I had a half hour or so left, I pulled out the store's little amp, and jacked all my stuff into it, and tried to continue (the show, not that song).

That was kinda tricky too though, 'cuz although my guitar and vocal mic run at about the same level when I'm using my amp, with the store's amp I had to set the vocal channel and the master volume all the way up to get even close to Loud Enough. My guitar's channel only had to be at about 4 (of 10). Weird. Anyway, I did another two or three songs, and got the tap-on-the-wrist signal from the Mean Girl Manager, so it was over.

But it was fun while it lasted. Lots of good feedback, requests, comments, and then warm-fuzzies afterwards while I was tearing down. Some ladies were requesting James Taylor songs, and called out "Thank you, Keith!" as they left. A young couple came over and just plopped down right in front and were just Listening. They didn't even have any books or magazines with them -- a First, I think.

I'm back there again next Saturday, with Warren. Good thing I still have the Indian Princess amp as a backup. I guess I'll take a look and see if it's something obvious, and then send mine back to Carvin for repair.