Keith at Viento y Agua -- Saturday, 07Mar2015

This is the place that has three hour-long sets per night. Last time I played the 7:00 first shift, so this time I asked for the 9:00 shift, to see if the place filled up later at night.

I got there early enough to hear the end of the first act, a jazz combo with two saxes, guitar, and drum box, playing interminable versions of "Just the Two of Us", "Isn't She Lovely" and the like. Ouch. There are basically two rooms -- one in front of the stage, and one for people who *aren't* there to hear the band. The Stage Room was pretty full, but almost all of them turned out to be friends of the band, and moved to the Other Room to party after they quit playing.

Which left about 5 people for the next guy. He was OK, but not impressive, so when he quit, there were maybe 3 people left for me. I was beginning to regret my "late shift" idea.

But after only a song or two, a whole bunch of people moved back over to listen to me. Flattering!

I played four or five songs of my own choosing to give them an idea of what I was about, and then started taking requests, which came in solid for the rest of the, what, seven songs.

At least the requests were all good choices. Except when the sound lady told me that I had two songs left, and a guy asked for "If I Only Had a Brain" from the Kids' List. I had to tell him that, if I only had two songs left, that wasn't going to be one of them. His second choice was "Wild World"; far more suitable.

And for my last song, I took a show of hands between "Let It Be" and "Imagine", with "Let It Be" winning out.

As I was tearing down, I asked the sound lady if there were any other places I ought to be trying to get into. One of the coffee guys suggested "Bogart's" in Seal Beach, and she said I should look into the "First Friday" event in Bixby Knolls. That's the second time I've been pointed to this legendary "Bixby Knolls". Unfortunately, when I dug up and applied online for that event, they never got back to me. Like most booking people...