I was sitting at lunch with the guys on Thursday, and we were talking about where I'd been playing lately, and my cell phone rang, which it very seldom does. It was the lady who books the Foothill Towne ("You can tell we're classy 'cuz we spell it with an 'e'") Center Food Court. The girl singer that I met there and got the booking info from had had to cancel, and inexplicably suggested that they call me. I already had a gig at Spectrum that evening, but for the $100 paycheck? Absolutely, I'm available.
The Foothill gig is from noon to 3, and the Spectrum one is 4-8, so I could theoretically do both, but could my (in ascending order) knees, back, fingers, and voice handle it? Only one way to find out...
It went pretty much the same as last time -- mostly empty when I get there, then the church people come in and ignore me, then later on the regular people come in and are quite nice. One nice girl marched right up and said, "Play 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'", which isn't on The List (which she hadn't looked at), but I do have a sheet for it in The Book. It's not on The List 'cuz it's just a bit too high for me, so I don't think i do it justice, but I was singing inexplicably high and clear, so I just said, "OK", and fired it up. Except for a few mistakes from lack of recent practice on it, it went *really* well -- I was hitting the high notes like some kind of pop music singer. It was delightful. Or maybe it was just the incredible natural reverb in that place, making me *think* I sounded great -- like singing in the shower.
A guy came in and brought his lunch right to the table in front of me and asked for a bunch of Cat Stevens songs, and a dapper gent and his wife listened well past finishing theirs. At some point, after "Wild World", he came up to look at The List, but also came up and said, "Cat Stevens ain't gait *nothing* on you!". And when they finally did get up to leave, he came up, stood at attention in front of me, and gave me a long formal salute. Odd, but nice.
On top of the $100 they'll pay me, I made $36 in tips, which is not bad for a Food Court. The booking lady told me that they're already booked through the end of August, but she's got me down (and owes me a favor?) as wanting another gig sometime in September. And hopefully, she'll think of me for any other cancellations she gets.
But for this one, fortunately, by 3:00 it was almost empty, except for a few new "fans". Sorry guys, I gotta pack up and get to another gig...
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