Sunday, October 18, 2009

K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- 16Oct2009

A really good night, because of the really good audience (for once). Usually we play to a lot of disinterested people, but this time we had a several people right up front, really listening. It makes a big difference. Having somebody to play for sharpens up our game, and ropes in more people, and round and round -- hopefully, anyway.

My brother came by, which is always nice because I trust his judgement of whether a song is working, or even worth pursuing. I've been working on several songs lately that I wanted him to hear. I even sent him a message on my way to the gig telling him that we'd be there -- which is way I wasn't completely surprised when he walked in, though he hadn't actually gotten that message...

I guess most of the new songs were working pretty well, though I'm pretty sure it's time to give up on "Africa", at least for indoor venues, and until I've practiced it quite a bit more. On the other hand, I'm really liking the way "Lucy in the Sky" works in my arrangement and key.

We had a little family with a toddler early on, and my brother and a young guy who seemed completely into our stuff later. And towards the end, there was a pretty lady who was looking around for a place to sit with her coffee, so I gave her my usual joke of, "There's no extra charge for the comfy seats up front" and she actually took me up on it. Turns out she was Australian, and really got into the music, asking for several songs and apparently staying quite a bit later than she'd intended.

We made $32 to split, which was quite a lot for this place. Not sure how that happened -- I didn't see many people coming over to contribute...

I had my movie camera all set up, but never managed to actually fire it up. I usually wait a while at the beginning 'cuz there's no point in capturing the early not-warmed-up yet songs, and then we were being "accompanied" by the happy little baby, so those takes wouldn't have been much good, either. And then I just kind of let it go -- maybe 'cuz it's nice to play without that pressure for a while.

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