Keith at Brea -- 14July2007

This was my first time as a solo in Brea. When I got there, it was very quiet, which makes it *so* hard to start up. So I played, and played some more, all to no reaction at all, except one guy in front who'd look up from his reading to clap quietly, most of the time.

It's very intimidating. I guess my insecurity needs the applause just to tell me that they're not resenting my intrusion. When this happens, I just tell myself to treat it like a dress rehearsal and play and sing like it counts. But once that no-applause pattern is set, it's pretty hard to break it.

So I played for a while, and took the Required Break. This kind of helped to break up the "song, song, song, he must be Muzak" pattern, and when I started up again, they seemed to realize that there was a person up there. One nice lady fetched up the list she'd been neglecting and asked me to play, of all things, "Octopus's Garden". And although the coffeeshop was almost entirely full, some new people had arrived and they weren't in on the unspoken agreement to not clap.

I also got to play my trump card: a lady with an 8-year-old boy came in, and after I played "You Got a Friend in Me" for him, I got him up to shake the shaker for "Jenny Dreamed of Trains". That always breaks the ice, at least some.

Then, near the end, amazingly, the guy who'd been quietly clapping two hours ago and had got up to leave, walked over and handed me a cold bottled water. He had bought me a drink! That's sure never happened before. I presume he was just being nice, and not reacting to my not-very-well-behaved voice of the night.

And when I played my last song and made my "gotta pack up now" announcement, there was a general (but quiet) round of applause (which has happened only a few times), and several people leaped up to put money in the jar! Apparently, despite my gloomy feelings about the night as it was happening, they were actually an appreciative bunch, just not a very demonstrative one...