K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- 17Apr2009

Remarkably, it's been 7 weeks since I'm played indoors, and 8 since I've played the brilliant acoustics of the South Coast Plaza Borders. Wow! I'd forgotten how good it can sound. At Spectrum, the general environment's loud, so I have to be way too loud, and that darn fountain makes white noise that varies between loud and really loud for the music to compete with.

So it was pretty delightful to be able to play and sing with a little subtlety for a change. And it was good timing, too, after the two previous somewhat discouraging gigs, it was good to have one go well -- I was starting to worry that I'd lost my mojo...

As usual, there weren't a whole lot of people there, but we had folks listening in pretty much the whole time. Right at first there was a young family that we've seen there before, and there were some college girls that made a few requests. Later on, there was a guy who was obviously a guitar player, who commented on playing in Drop-D tuning, so I took the opportunity to play a bunch of those songs. Not that he was really asking to hear every Drop-D song I know, but it was as good an excuse as any.

I brought my movie camera again, and with the great acoustics and attention, was playing and singing pretty well, so I got lots of presentable songs. Luckily (?), I'd forgotten the second battery, or I'd'a had even more of 'em. As it was, I waited until halfway through to fire the camera up, but, since I don't like to delay the show, I just pointed it the best I could guess, and hit "go" -- ending up with me pretty squarely in the picture, but Warren usually cut in half. Wish I'd'a remembered to put it in Letterbox mode -- if it'd been getting wider shot, Warren might have been in the picture better. Next time.

But anyway, I posted what I got -- some new stuff, and some classics that are hopefully improving over time. Links below:
Five O'Clock World
Sarah Maria
Four and Twenty
Wichita Lineman
Past the Point of Rescue
You Were Always On My Mind
Time After Time
Something

I'm not entirely sure why I'm filling YouTube up with videos of me singing stuff. I guess I'm pretending that it can be an audition resource, but we've yet to encounter any booking person that accepts on-line material in lieu of a physical CD. Maybe the world's working up to that. Until then, I guess it's straight-up vanity. Fortunately, with my new camera, rig, and software, it's pretty easy to grab a night's worth and edit out and post the good takes.