Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Friday, 21Feb2014

I've been hoping/expecting that the Fridays would get better as it got warmer, but not so far. I had some little girls dancing right at the beginning, which is becoming kind of traditional lately, but it was a pretty slow night, generally.

For some reason, they'd brought out "the big stage", which seemed nice at first, to have so much room to move around in. But turned out to be a bit of a problem, because there's so much room between me and the front of the stage, the kids aren't as intimidated about sneaking up on to it (and apparently the parents don't see as much of a problem with it, either). Of course, they make their move while I'm in the middle of a song, so I can't say anything, and can't even make "back off" hand motions. And, of course, as soon as the bravest/craziest kid gets up there, they all figure it's OK, and climb up, too.

And I don't really mind, as long as they stay back a bit. But having given them an inch, it's not long before they're crowding up and about to knock over the music stand, and I've had kids decide to step on those big shiny buttons on the harmony box and totally mess up the song. Oh well. At least they're not scared of me...

One teenage girl came running up just as I'd finished "Let It Go" from "Frozen", my new huge hit crowd gathering song. She asked, "Did I miss 'Let it Go'?!? They called me and I came as fast as I could!" I didn't know who "they" were, but I said, "Yes, I just finished it. But there are others -- and I'll probably end up playing it again in 5 minutes or so." So she sat down and listened and laughed and clapped as I went through half-a-dozen other Disney songs. At one point she asked me, "Is the 'Toy Story' song that you do 'You've Got a Friend in Me'?" I thought about that and wondered, "What other "Toy Story" songs are there?" And then I remembered one, and said, "Yes, that's the one. I certainly don't do the 'Jessie is Very Sad' song!", and she laughed and laughed.

Later on, a guy listened to a few songs, and then came up and said, "I don't have any money to tip you, but I wanted to say that you sound great, and I'm from London, and you don't hear any voices like yours singing The Beatles". I'm not entirely sure what that meant, but I took it as a compliment.

And another guy, all heavy metaled out, was standing and staring at me pointedly for a long time, kind of slack-jawed. I was initially afraid that he was gonna "start something", but after a while it seemed clear that he was impressed. Finally he came up and threw some money in my guitar case, started to walk away but turned to throw me "the horns" and mouth "You rock!" I'm not sure I can really claim to do much "rocking", but thanks.

Towards the end a little girl came up and asked me, "Can you play 'Let It Go' again?" She'd apparently already heard it once that night, but OK, I did, and since she was obviously a big "Frozen" fan, I followed it with "Do You Want To Build a Snowman?", which I'd never played in public before. It starts off really cute, but gets really sad, but she (and her mom) seemed to like it.

And more strange tips: some kind of high-end chocolate thing, a somewhat ragged Laffy Taffy bar, and a big black button. Yay?