K&W in Laguna Beach -- 05Feb2013

Warren and I had scheduled a gig in Laguna the day before when it was nice out, but then it turned all cold and gloomy. If I had been going down solo, I probably would have just called it off, but I couldn't leave Warren hanging so I went anyway.

And it turned out pretty great! A cold, gloomy weeknight in February. Naturally, there weren't many people out, but it seems like, when they're the only ones passing by at a given time, people get more friendly. The passer-by to tippers ratio definitely seems to go way up, at least.

Quite early on, we dragged in a cute little 5-year-old girl in a Hello Kitty hoodie and her mom and grandma. I immediately switched to kids' songs, and did 3 or 4 in a row for her/them. It always blows their little minds when I do "Twinkle, Twinkle". They are clearly not expecting to actually recognize anything out here in the Real World.

After they left, a guy came by and sat down on the bench. I asked him if he wanted to pick a song, but he said that he was just there waiting on his wife to finish shopping. I said, "Oh, like the couch they put outside the lingerie department", and he said, "Exactly". But he was there for quite a while, and started talking to us, and telling us about the James Taylor and CSN concerts that he'd seen back in Michigan. He finally asked for "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" once his wife appeared. I think he's the one that left the tenner in the jar.

Later, there was a pack of middle-aged ladies, escorting a younger lady who was "from Norway". They sat and listened for several songs, and Miss Norway requested "Hallelujah". One of the other ladies (mom, aunts?) asked for "Under the Boardwalk" which seemed slightly out of place on such a cold evening, but whatever.

As they finally had to move on, I gave my new Norwegian fan a copy of my CD, which she seemed thrilled by. (I told her escorts that I only did it so she'd take it back with her after which I could claim to be "world famous".) Much later, as we were packing up, they came back by and she ran up and asked me to autograph it!

Anyway, we had a nice evening with a most-of-the-time revolving audience, and pulled in $36, which was shocking since I was wondering on the drive down there if this was gonna be the first night where I didn't make back the $2 parking meter fee...