When I got there, Tom Monroe was playing at the ice cream corner, and "Tom & Tommie" were waiting to take over, so I just set up on the Fingerhut side. But it was pretty slow going, so when the gallery closed at 7:00, I moved over into their side-door alcove -- it has great acoustics, but the gallery ladies chase you away if you try to play there. It sounded better, but I wasn't getting any action there either. But after a half-hour or so, little Tommie came over to tell me that they were leaving, so I could have The Corner.
I wondered why they'd hung out for two hours to get The Corner, and then only played for 20 minutes, but I found out -- the ice cream store's music was really loud, and T&T play acoustic-only, so they couldn't compete.
But I can, sort of. And I had way better luck with the crowd now that they had somewhere to sit, and a reason (ice cream) to. I even started gathering small clumps of standing people, as the after-dinner crowds let out of the restaurants after 9:00 or so. (And when a kid came out of the ice cream shop to dump some trash, I said, "Hey, could you turn that down a little?", and he unexpectedly just said "Sure!", and did.)
I ended up playing for five and a half hours, though the first half was lame and the last half was great. So great I pulled in a record $105 in tips. A big part of that was from a lady who listened for a while, then got up and walked to the ATM, got out a twenty, and stuffed it in my jar. That's incredibly flattering not only for the dollar amount, but for the effort it took to deliver it!
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