K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 24Jan2015

There was a mild Santa Ana wind condition, so it was a nice warm evening in January, with lots of foot traffic out. So even though the Tommies were on the ice cream corner, I figured I could do OK on the Fingerhut side.

But I like it when people stay a while, for which they need someplace to sit. So I decided to reverse the arrangement, and stand up against the building and let the people sit on the low wall or the bench. And it worked pretty well -- I had quite a lot of people come by. I was worried that my sound would be shooting straight across at the Tommies, but Tom never came over to complain, so maybe it was OK.

Or at least a lot less annoying than the (quite good) rock band that was playing in the art school's gallery. It wasn't so bad when the doors were closed, but every time someone would go in or out, it was really loud.

I had a little girl, maybe five years old, with her mom and dad and baby brother stop and listen for 4 or 5 songs before wandering off. But about 5 minutes later, they came back, apparently at the little girl's insistence. I said, "You know, your twin sister was just here a few minutes ago." Her parents laughed, but she just quietly said, "It's me..."

About 9:00, Tom took the kids home, so Warren and I moved over, and things picked up considerably. Unfortunately, the gallery people propped the doors open (must have been getting hot in there), so we had some pretty strong sonic competition. I had to stick with just my loudest songs, "Sweet Caroline", "Cinnamon Girl", etc. I even played "Friends in Low Places", which slowed down a flock of Woo Girls, but didn't quite manage to stop them. I told Warren that maybe we needed to start serving alcohol.