K&W at Irvine Spectrum -- 01Nov2008

My favorite outing at this venue so far. Not a lot of people, but we fairly consistently had at least somebody Actually Listening. It was kind of cold, and had threatened to rain earlier, so the turnout was as you'd expect, but it wasn't really unpleasant up on the stage. And the sound, after some tweaks, wasn't half bad, so I didn't feel like it was just a mess.

Had one guy ask for "Mister Bojangles", which I've looked at several times over the years. Because I keep poking at it, I happened to have a copy of the song sheet in the book, so I was able to do it for him, with only one major screw up where I just forgot how to read English for a line. This actually happens more often than I'd like to admit...

Towards the end, three 15-16 year-old girls came over and plopped down right in front. They were listening pretty well, and having fun with us, but when I started "With a Little Help From My Friends" they lit up, spun their chairs around, and sang along all the way through it (which is a little tough, cuz I do James Taylor's version which is pretty different from the Beatles one). After the song, I asked then if they were in a choir or something, buy they weren't -- just big Beatles fans, apparently. Their parents had arrived, though, and they had to leave, so I did "All My Lovin'" as they walked away.

We've been considering whether to try playing at the other stage, where you have to pay $50. When I counted up the tips and CD money, we'd made $55, which, as a one night take is probably in the top ten, but in light of the decision, was just cruel. I think that we'd probably better wait until the Spring, and then give it a try, but in the cold and with the economic crisis, it would probably be ill-advised to try it now.

The other weird part is that the maintenance guys that came to take down the stage asked why we don't try the other stage, and said that the guy that was there that night wanted to play the Food Court where we were. Huh? Either he thinks the Food Court is still free, or he's thinking that having a semi-captive audience ('cuz they're eating) would be better than the high volume, but too mobile, crowd he'd gotten. Interesting...