K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 25Oct2014

I had gotten up at 5:30 am to help with the auction at my mom's house, so I wasn't sure I'd have enough energy to do a gig too, but there are only so many nice-weather Saturdays in a year, so I went down anyway. And once I get started, I don't feel anything but the music...

And it was a terrific night. When we arrived, there were already some ladies waiting for us, and while I was setting up another family came by that knows us, and always tells me how much they love my CD and "play it in the car all the time!" They all sat on the bench and sang along, and swayed back and forth to the music, and made for a great start.

All night long I barely got a chance to choose a song myself, since there was always someone there making requests. The only problem we had was a too-friendly local character who thinks we're buddies 'cuz I let him play tabla along with us once. But his drums got stolen so he couldn't play along this time, but he did feel entitled to sing along and loudly chat up, and eventually scare away, other people who came by. And he got worse and worse as he drank beer after beer, pulled from his backpack.

We also had a visit from a guy who comes almost every time these days, who stands there singing along all night long. He's nice enough, and clearly loves our stuff, but he's not much of a singer. I can only hope that the other people are hearing my amplified voice over his.

Which, this time: probably. I think I was turned up quite a bit louder than I've even been before, but since there's nobody else out there trying to play, I can get away with it -- and I asked the people in front of the amp if I was too loud and they assured me that I wasn't. It just makes it so nice for me when the monitor is good and loud, so I can hear myself and I guess I just feel "empowered". It sure feels like I'm singing better when I can tell what I'm doing.

And besides that, maybe it was the exhaustion, or the caffeine, or the stage adrenaline, but I was feeling quite uninhibited and just "letting it fly", which is big, big fun.