Keith at Riverside Plaza -- Saturday, 11May2013

This was my first time at this new venue, but I figured it was another outdoor mall, so it ought to be similar to Irvine Spectrum where I've played many many (>125) times. I figured wrong.

At Spectrum, you're standing in the middle of a rush of foot-traffic, and you feel like the prow of a ship, splitting the flow and hoping that some percentage of the people rushing by will notice the music and slow down or stop for a few tunes. In Riverside, it's less of a "walking around" Fashion mall, and more of a bunch of utilitarian shops that share a parking lot. Sometime recently, they painted all the stores the same color so they can call it a "shopping center". But the types of stores and the layout do not encourage window-shopping -- you're there for a purpose, and you get in and out when you're done.

Except! There are some restaurants clumped together across from the movie theaters, and people seem to come out to eat there, and hang around at the outdoor tables listening to the band, which the management is smart enough to book 4 nights a week, every week. And when people come out of the theaters, since there's not much else to look at, they'll hang around the fountain that's out front, if the band strikes their fancy.

It was weird. People seemed to be there, if not specifically to hear the music, to at least give the music a try before going home. And once I got some people to request a song off the list, other people figured they could join in on that, and I got more and more requests.

The strange part, though, was that this was an actual city street that runs through the shops, and to set up for music, they rope off the wide brick crosswalk between the restaurants and the theaters, and call it the stage. So I'm standing right in the middle of the street, and people are hanging out on the left side of the street, or sitting at the tables on the right side of the street, and the space in the middle in front of me is apparently molten lava, 'cuz *nobody* will come and stand out there.

Until I finally broke that spell by handing out fingerlights to 6 or 8 little kids who then danced and ran around and played "ring around the rosie" out in front. The "turnover" rate was so low that the kids had lots of time to make friends and play together. I guess a lot of people liked my music, 'cuz most of them seemed to just settle in for the night. And their kids were in a safe and easily supervised space, so it felt like I was playing at a block party.

I suppose I did OK with my usual act, but it was clear to me afterward that this place requires a somewhat different approach than the high turnover Spectrum or Laguna street corner gigs -- and one that I'm completely unversed at. Having a long-term sticking-around actual audience makes it (theoretically) possible to develop some rapport and tune the set to the crowd. Not that I know how to do that...

The downside was that, because of the far-lower level of traffic, I only made $70 in tips, about half of what I make at Spectrum these days. But on the other hand, the Riverside gig pays money up front ($125), and Spectrum deducts $50 as a set up fee, so overall, Riverside is a much better deal, money-wise. But that's beside the point -- I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it for the experiences, and this was certainly a different one!

Now, this place is 50 miles from home, so it took me an hour and a half to get there and an hour to get home, plus gas, so it's not something I'd want to do every weekend, but it was interesting and fun to play under a completely different "feel". And the lady that books Riverside just booked me to play the mall in Chino, so now I'll get to see what that one is like!