Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 12Sept2009

It was quite a bit cooler than last week, so I expected more people to be out, but it was actually even worse. It was like "Borders Night" -- I played to dead silence most of the time.

Started off interestingly, though -- a little boy, maybe 7, named, apparently, Solomon, came right up while I was setting up the equipment and asked if he could sing a song. I said, "Sure, go ahead". Of course, he wanted to have a microphone, not just stand there singing, so I got the head-mic connected and put it on his head, and told him to go for it. But that wasn't good enough, either -- he wanted "music", too. I asked him what song he was gonna sing, but he didn't really know, but just wanted me to play anyway. So I set up the rest of the stuff and we started playing -- him singing something unintelligible and inaudible, and me quietly strumming a couple of chords at random. He really thought he knew what he was doing, and punctuated his singing with some vaguely karate-like stage "moves" -- and his mom was thrilled and taking movies on her camera.

We did four songs that way, but it was getting close to my actual start time, and I thought I'd better get started for real -- this was music only a mother could love. While he was waiting for me to set up he had told me that he was a "great singer, and actor, too", and that he'd been in movies, which turned out to be only the one, though he didn't know the name of it. That was actually semi-believable -- he was a darn cute little kid, and had enough "moxie" to have gotten into a movie as an extra.

The only problem was that his family (gramma and two sisters) stayed around for a long time having dinner and chatting, and he kept coming up and asking if he could sing another song. I had to keep telling him no, 'cuz, really, we'd all had plenty of it, I think.

I never really did get anything "going", though. About halfway through, three teenage boys came and were completely stoked, but they only stayed for a few (Beatle) songs. Their interest sparked a small spate of attention from some other diners, which apparently chased them off when they didn't get first crack at the requests, and which died out pretty quickly. They came back a while later, and asked me if I gave guitar lessons. I was flattered, but had to turn them down.

Geneva, Acacia and her friend came by, briefly, and I guess Geneva met some friends and went to a movie, and Acacia and her friend shopped, and came back by later on. That was nice, because I've recently learned "Come On, Get Higher", a new song that Acacia says is her favorite song ever, so I wanted to play it for her. Apparently acceptably, too. I also used her being there to try out "Don't Stop Believing" again, which went over well with lots of previously-dead-silent people, so I took a chance on "Africa" too, which, OK, not as much, though I played it a lot better than last week.

I took home a disappointing $31, though that's still, what, three times better than even a "good" Borders night, so I shouldn't complain.

No comments: