K&W at Homeless Benefit Concert -- Saturday, 07Sept2013

Kooky Mikey the Greeter and his pastor had this idea to put on a concert of the street musicians to benefit the homeless and some children in Haiti. Naturally, I volunteered right away, and although I already had a gig scheduled at Spectrum that evening, Mikey assured me that it would start at 4:00, and I could go first.

Turns out it really started at 5:00 (and Spectrum starts at 6), but I did it anyway. I had expected to go on solo, so Warren could play with Jim, but Jim had something else going on, so I invited Warren to go on with me.

As far as we could tell, there was no publicity at all, but a few people wandered in on their way back to their cars from the beach when they heard the music. The local radio station guys showed up, but just to sell some T-shirts, not to broadcast or even record the event. And a Orange County Register photographer was there, though not a reporter, so there were only a few pictures and a brief blurb on their website the next day.

Pastor Don said that we could do "4 or 5 songs", but since we were first, we got up to do a "sound check" with the provided equipment, got the levels as close as we could (which was *terrible*, but, oh well), and cheated in few songs for the folks wandering in early and the artists in some booths along the side, and then started playing my Best Stuff after the official start at 5:00.

After three songs, I asked Pastor Don how many more I had time for, and he said "one". So I fired up "Over the Rainbow" to go out on my most well-received song. After the big ovation (well, big for a dozen people), Don ran over and asked "Do you want to do one more?", and I said, "Nope!" and started unplugging stuff. I was out of time anyway to make it to Spectrum, and he'd fooled me into doing my Final Number already, so, too late! Besides, the sound was so screwed up (from where I was, though apparently not so bad Out There), that I couldn't really tell what I was doing, and Warren's amp had turned into a Feedback Machine that had completely drowned out my intro to "Rainbow" (though they'd apparently gotten it back under control), so I was ready to Be Done.

Warren stayed for the rest of the evening, and said that most of the acts got to play 4 songs, and that for most of them, that was 4 too many, but there were a few that were good. Pastor Don's guys said that it was a "great success", though we don't know what that means, and that they'd probably do it again next year. I guess you can count me in, but try to avoid a night where I'm already booked.

This blog post. Let me read you it.