Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Saturday, 15Mar2014

A huge, wonderful night. First big terrific-weather Saturday of the year, and there were *lots* of people out for it. And lots of them were very receptive. Maybe it was the hat. (I always wear it in Laguna, but not at Spectrum – but I just felt like it this time. And now I guess I'll have to wear it every time!)

Big night for Disney songs (as they're all liable to be from here out…) Some high school kids came by and looked the list and each of them chose a different song. I told them to narrow it down a bit, and they came back with "Part of Your World" from "The Little Mermaid". I started it up, and one of the girls moved out front and started lip-synching the words and dramatically pantomiming being the mermaid. She was quite good, and a lot of people stopped to watch her.

When she was done, I heard the girls beating up on the lone boy to put something in my guitar case, since apparently none of them had any cash. He didn't either, but succumbed to the peer pressure and left a Starbucks gift card (worth $10) to get the girls off his back. That extra ten bucks pushed it over the line for a new record high in tips, too.

But of course, the big hit was "Let it Go" (in the new, corrected, "movie version" replacing the barely-known "pop version" I had learned at first), which I must have played at least a dozen times. Including the time near the end when I played it and just as I was finishing up, a middle-aged couple appeared at the side table. I could tell they wanted to ask me something, and it was "Will you play 'Let It Go'?" I told them that I'd just finished it, 30 seconds ago, and was literally still panting from the big high note at the end. Somehow, they'd walked up through the 50 yards that I can be heard from, and didn't hear the song that they were walking though...

I had one set of little kids that were there for a long time. I had run through all the Disney songs on the list and they were still there. So I fired up "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", which is also from "Frozen", but not as huge a hit as "Let It Go", but I figured these girls would know it. And they did. The song is sung by Anna, but at a particular point, there's a spoken line by her sister Elsa. When I got to that spot, I paused, and when nobody responded, I prompted, "Your line!", and one of the little girls figured it out and shouted "Go away, Anna!" *That* was great.

So a while later I had another inspiration, and it had been a while so I announced that I was going to play "Let It Go" (again), and invited anyone who knew the words to come up onto the front edge of the stage and sing along. Didn't have to ask twice... Immediately I had four enthusiastic girls on the stage, and a dozen parents out front with their cameras running. Lucky for me, my wife and daughter were also there at that time (with the dogs), so I got some pictures, too.

Indeed, the "Let It Go" mania continued even after I was finished and had the gear half packed up when some teens came by and saw the lists and begged me to play it. It was 11:30 by then, and the fountain was completely off, so I got the guitar back out and played it, acoustic-only, right there at the edge of the stage for them. That was fun.