Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 26Nov2010

They've been doing construction next to the Food Court for the last month or two, demolishing a big restaurant, with no indication of what they'll put in. Well, it's finally done, and the answer is: nothing. They just paved over the whole place so it's one huge patio connected to the east side of the Food Court itself, and probably tripling the area.

But they didn't equip it with more tables and chairs -- the outside seating area of the Food Court never really filled up, so the idea clearly wasn't to add capacity to it. So all that's in the new area is three new sun-umbrellas with some outdoor comfy chairs and couches, two little vending carts, and empty space. Lots of that.

When I got there, I hunted around for where they put the stage in this new setup, and it was way over at the edge of the Food Court, "behind" (from the Court's point of view) a planter box with big trees in it, facing out into the new area. People in the Court, my usual audience, couldn't even see me. From the stage, there's nothing but brick pavers for miles, until you get out to the new comfy chairs clump, waaay out there. And over to my left, the two carts.

One of which made matters even worse -- it was selling T-shirts with live LED images on them that would react to sound/music. Pretty cool technology, but in order to demonstrate them, she had specially chosen thump-thumpy music blaring out so the display shirts would move. Loud -- really loud. I thought (hoped?) that she was far enough away that it wouldn't be a problem, and it was mostly OK (from where I was standing anyway) while I was playing, but as soon as a song was over: thumpa, thumpa, thumpa. Really annoying. And the space between her and me must have been even worse.

So basically, it's terrible. People wander through the space, and occasionally smile or nod my way on their way past, but there's nowhere to sit, so there's nothing resembling an audience -- even an accidental one a la the diners in the Food Court area. Some folks would take the only option and sit out on the comfy couches, where they could probably hear well enough, but there's no possibility of any kind of relationship -- no point in even clapping, and definitely too far away to shout up a request. Indeed, old Toshiba friend Glenn and family came by and did exactly that, though he did make the trek up and back to say hi, and then again to ask for a few tunes.

And occasionally, someone would come and stand up close, over to the side by the table, and listen for a few songs. Had some families with little kids so I played "Roll Over, Beethoven" so they could dance, and a really nice couple who ended up buying two CDs, and some others. But it took a lot of guts/dedication to do that, so it didn't happen much.

Not to mention, cold. I had brought our bathroom space heater, but of course, I couldn't even tell it was even on unless I was touching the front grill. The readout on top said 48 degrees. And I'm standing there, almost completely still, for 4 hours straight. It gets really hard to play when your fingers are frozen stiff.

Anyway, enough whining. I was upset that I hardly have any gigs there through December, but now I'm glad. All these issues are solvable -- maybe some furniture is on order, maybe someone will tell the T-shirt girl to turn it down, and the maintenance guys will undoubtedly start bringing out the umbrella heaters someday. I just figure that whoever has the rest of the gigs in December can deal with them, and I'll cruise in to all-fixed-up, later on. Hopefully.

Inexplicably, there was $35 in the tip jar. A third of that was the nice lady who bought the two CDs. Not sure when the rest of it came along, but I guess I was playing OK. Or maybe it was just pity for that guy playing guitar up there and turning blue...