K&W at Yorba Linda -- 23Jun2007

Kind of disappointing. I was never able to really connect with anybody -- they were almost all otherwise engaged. Or unimpressed...

We had one small funny incident: one of two seriously studying young ladies asked me to play "You've Got a Friend", so I did. But as soon as I started the intro, I could tell by their reaction that that's not the song she meant. Of course, I couldn't stop once I'd gotten started, but when I got to the end, I said "But that's not the song you wanted, is it?" The one she meant was "You've Got a Friend In Me" (from "Toy Story"), so I chided her a bit about hoping that she was being more accurate in her homework there, and played that one, too.

One of my sometimes-successful tricks for getting some kind of attention from a non-attentive audience is to play a noticeably-difficult or impressive song. This tends, at this point, to be "Scarborough Fair" -- people know it, and can somehow tell that it's tricky to play, and once I've played it, I get the (probably imaginary) feeling that there's a bit more respect in the room. This makes the subsequent simple songs go over better, presumably because they now know that I *can* play more impressively, but don't happen to be doing so.

Anyway, the only problem with that is that I (have to) play that one solo -- it's so concentration-intensive that if Warren plays along, the distraction is enough to completely derail me. Last week when our guest-harmony singer sang along, I got screwed up several times (though I was able to recover, astonishing myself in the process). Warren once told me that he didn't mind sitting a few songs out, but it still bothers me to do it, 'cuz he has to put his guitar down and walk away, and it's plenty awkward.

And this time, I played it early on in desperation, trying to get some reaction from these brick-like people. Then later in the night, I solicited requests from Tiffany the coffee-girl, and she wanted to hear, oops, "Scarborough Fair". I guess she can't hear us very well way over there behind the counter (or maybe she's just too preoccupied) and didn't hear it the first time. Of course, I can't refuse a direct request, especially from a store staff-person who we'll be seeing again. But doing that to Warren once a night is bad enough -- twice felt really uncool.