Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Sun, 22May2011

The last Sunday I played here was pretty dead, so I wasn't expecting much.  And it was kinda weird - people were hanging around and listening, but there was hardly any clapping all night.  It was like there was a sign up or something.  I can see them mistaking a Borders for a library, but not the big open plaza at Spectrum...

There were lots of people out, so I had someone to play to most of the night, albeit totally silent someones.  I managed to get a few brave souls to come up and request some songs, and in the middle I had the now-standard Kid Party, with 6 or 8 kids dancing away.  Had one little boy ask if I knew "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee", and when I said I didn't, he proceeded to "teach it to me" - and all of the several verses, too, if he hadn't been mercifully pre-empted by his mom.

Despite there being a lot of people around, the sound was strangely clear -- I could hear myself almost as well as at an indoor gig.  Maybe I was just turned up louder than usual, though I wasn't having any feedback problems, either.  Anyway, it was great fun to play and sing with the clarity, so I felt like I was doing really well.

Although the audience was so oddly quiet, I came home with $83 in the jar, quite a bit more than the last Sunday I played here.  And I didn't get that "I should start later" feeling that I had last time, either.  In fact, it occurred to me that, although the stores close at 8 on Sunday (and the "shift" is theoretically over), the best audiences I've gotten on Saturday nights come after the movies let out, so I thought I might try to hang in there until 9 or so.  But my last "customers" left at 8:40, it didn't really look like another wave was forthcoming, and I was starving, so I packed it in.