They managed to get the stage relocated (after my loud email whining last week), but not quite to where I thought we were talking about. The "other side of the candle shop" location we'd agreed on would have been directly in front of one of the two entrances to the inside seating area of the food court, so I understand why they decided against it.
Instead, it was 50 feet straight out from there, pretty much up against the tables at the north end of the plaza. Interesting. A bit better, fountain-wise, especially audience visibility-wise (and not being in the "splash zone"-wise). I wasn't too much farther away from it, but it was far less noisy/distracting from the new place. Also, either I was farther from the speakers, or they got it turned further down, so the "House Music" wasn't an issue this time, either. Afterwards, I talked to the maintenance guy, and he asked if it was OK, and said that this was where it's gonna be "from now on".
I guess that's OK -- it's just a little weird to be right in amongst the tables. At the old place, there was an 8-10 foot passageway between the stage and the first of the tables. Now, there's only 3 feet. Various sets of people sat at those up-front tables through the evening (most of them to eat), but they had to be pretty brave (or deaf) to do so. I ended up standing farther back on the stage itself, just to get a bit out of their faces.
It's also right in front of the new Ice Cream Bar shop. I had gone in to talk to the dudes (and I mean *duuudes*) before I started -- just to explain/apologize in advance, but they were cool with it. And when I went in after to ask if I'd been a nuisance, they were still cool, and even gave me a free one.
The shocker was that, when I got all set up and hit the power, my harmony box wouldn't power up. Turns out that, although the box itself is built like a battleship, the AC adapters are ultra cheap, and the wire had just broken where it enters the adapter. I managed to prop it up just right, and tape the wire to the floor, to get it to work -- mostly. It only cut out 2 or 3 times, and since both the guitar and voice go through that box, when it goes out, I get instant dead silence. Embarrassing, but it started to fail pretty late, so there weren't many people left. (I emailed to complain and they've heard it before, and are finding a new vendor, and are sending me another (still lame) one.)
But, other than that, there was some fun to be had. I got two or three groups of teens that asked for some songs, Beatles and the new Jason Mraz song I just learned, etc. The burly guy who runs the Australian Surf Jewelry and Persian Fortune Telling shop (!?) came over and stared at my list for a while, then asked "Know any Sinatra?" First time I've gotten that one. But I kind of do -- Ol' Frank (along with everyone else) did "The Way You Look Tonight", so I played that one for him.
And it was the first public airing of "Here Comes the Sun", which I've been literally playing nothing but, all week. The first time through was pretty rough, but the second time I was less petrified (though more (fingers) frozen-stiff), and I played it pretty well. I've been heavily focussed on getting the guitar part down, and whether or not I could sing at the same time. Turns out, the main issue (for me, anyway), wasn't inability to play or sing it, but that the vocal itself sounded really weak. Not sure why, and it's not the kind of thing that I usually notice in my own singing, so I was baffled. Maybe I just need to get used to hearing me instead of George...
The most fun was a young family came by who had been there the week before and picked up my "Waltzing With Bears" CD. The mom brought the little 2-year-old up to the stage and told her to "Tell him what song you want". She popped out "Lollipop!" [Tree], so of course, I played it. She was completely thrilled, wiggling uncontrollably, dancing, crashing herself into her mom's shoulder to hide her face in glee. A few songs later, we all repeated the routine when she came back up and said, "Bears!". Too cute -- and made my night. Well, that and the 40 bucks.
2 comments:
Wow... that sounds like an entirely peculiar location for the stage... but it seems you've made the best of it. Great story about the little girl who knows just what she wants to hear...!
There's a place in heaven for those who can make small children hide their faces in glee.
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