K&W at Mission Viejo -- 21Jun2008

That went really well -- best I can remember at Mission Viejo, probably only because the sound, which is usually terrible there, was inexplicably quite good. We were in the corner again, but we did that last time, and it didn't help all that much. I think it was just that there were fewer conversations shouting over us (or is it vice versa?).

We'd played almost 5 hours the night before at Java Joe's, so I expected to be trashed, finger- and voice-wise, but, not so bad. We started at 7:00, and had negotiated a 10:00 ending time (as opposed to the mandated 9:00) with our pal the manager, Sally, but although my fingers and voice were holding up, 'round about 9:30 I was getting light-headed from plain ol' tiredness, and the crowd had thinned down pretty bad anyway, so I called it quits. First time I can remember that I voluntarily stopped playing (unless you count the night before at Joe's when I quit at midnight, but that was just craziness). I'm gettin' too old for this.

Sally told us that Mike, the Borders District Manager had been laid off. This is worrisome only because whenever the guy who does the booking, Bob, makes a mistake (reasonably frequently), Mike is our "court of appeals". But, we got a (mistake-free, this time) schedule for July from Bob, two weeks after Mike was gone, so the system is still chugging along -- although it seems weird that Bob, a volunteer, is booking all us volunteer bands into the Borders stores with no apparent supervision from Borders. Sally heard something about a woman named Leta who may or may not be taking over for Mike. I guess we'll see what happens.

Anyway, with the good sound, and a pretty nice audience, it was a good night -- and we made pretty decent tips, too. Sally had wanted to come up and sing "Rainbow Connection", but apparently got too busy (or chicken). Maybe next time -- I'm there again solo in two weeks.