Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Friday, 08Nov2013

Better turnout than last time I played a Friday here -- must have been the nice weather. Lots of families out so I had several kids parties start up. I've gone by to hear the other acts that play there, and I've never heard any of them play kids' songs in the early evening, and transition to adult songs later on, and then mellow out for the later hours with love songs for dating couples, like I do. Don't know if they're unable or unwilling, or just insensitive to the crowd...

Anyway, I had the three toy tambourines and four egg-shakers all passed out, and I was playing "Mister Postman" which is my go-to kids' dance song, and I realized that nobody was dancing. Apparently, it takes all their bandwidth to just shake the tambourine or shaker, so they stand stock still. But they're having fun, so I guess it's OK.

One guy came by with his little daughter and they know me and must have my CDs. She danced with her beautiful ballet movements while her dad asked for a string of songs, including "Waltzing with Bears" which I never play anymore unless someone asks for it. It just doesn't work unless you're listening to the lyrics, which nobody does at this kind of gig...

Toward the end a fashion-model made-up Chinese lady was listening but too shy to ask for a song until I called her out. She wanted to hear "Your Song" and "Hotel California", though she was much too young to know them from their initial runs. Then her mom came over and the consulted in Chinese about the list for a while and settled on "Imagine", which took a while to decode from their accented pronunciation, but they seemed to really enjoy it.

As I was packing up, a drunk Aussie came over and asked if he could use my mic, as his friends kept walking on. I figured he wanted to say (or sing) Happy Birthday or some such, so I reconnected everything and powered the amp back up, and gave him my head mic. He started "beat boxing" into it, which didn't work with that kind of mic, and got a lot of beer spit all over the little foam ball. Yuck -- thanks, dude.

Click 'Play' to hear the "podcast version". (Fair warning: it's really just me ramblin' on about this gig for 5 minutes.)