K&W at Laguna Beach -- 22Aug2012

Summer is clearly winding down -- less traffic again, and definitely fewer tourists. But right off the bat, we had a clump of high school kids, just done with the beach for the day, who stayed for quite a while asking for songs and then failing to listen to them (but still fun to have around). Not sure how this bodes for their attention spans when school starts...

Had more trouble with the sound -- this time caused by dead batteries in the amp itself. This is understandable, since I've been using the amp for all of these Laguna gigs, and haven't had to replace them yet. Eight "D" cells is a lot of juice, but not infinite.

But this is definitely a recurring issue with this "all battery" setup. The harmony box and the wireless mic's receiver both run from the rechargeable battery pack I rigged up, but there are regular alkalines in the guitar's pickup, the mic's transmitter, the D.I. and the amp. And the usual symptom when any of them starts getting weak is distortion, which is also caused by overloads of anything by anything that's up the chain, so it's kinda hard to tell what's wrong, but it's easy to tell that *something* is.

We played to almost nobody a lot, but then four happy (half-drunk?) ladies ("from Peru, South America!") came and sat down, to sway and sing along with "Let It Be". Naturally, halfway through it, the amp went from distorting to garbling, to cutting out. I had some spare batteries, but it takes a while to install them, and the ladies moved on. Drat.

But later on I snagged a little crowd with a set of all "nostalgia" tunes: "Leaving on a Jet Plane", "Homeward Bound", "In My Life", etc. We had a nice couple (who, almost on cue, added "You've Got a Friend" to the set), and a young family, whose cute little girl helped bring in other people, just watching her delight. She was only 2 years old, but when she figured out that there was a guy singing up there, she started asking for "ABCD!", and I surprised her trying-to-explain parents by launching right into it (it's just the alphabet, sung to the tune of "Twinkle "Twinkle"). First kid I've run into that likes the ABCD version better.

Anyway, I guess the sound was finally acceptable (and the traffic noise was abating), 'cuz I was starting to get the couples who are marching past, only to have one spouse stop the other one to listen for a while. I love when that happens. And when I spot people not slowing down, but mouthing the words to the song I'm singing, in spite of themselves. Your feet say no, but your mouth says yes.

But that crowdlet dissipated when the little girl left, and I decided that 9:00 was time to go on home. We packed up and I counted up the tips ($52) while the bluegrass kids set up to take over the spot. They're really good, and people love the novelty, but the crowd's pretty thin that late.