K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 18Apr2015

I knew the Tommies would probably be down on the Ice Cream Corner, so I waited until 7:30 to get there -- and sure enough, there they were. I set up on the Fingerhut side, and did miserably, despite the pretty large crowds. Those crowds kept the Tommies at it until almost 9:30, so those first few hours were mostly a waste.

The Tommies were actually driven away by some young guys that set up in an entryway alcove a few shops down PCH -- two acoustic guitars and a full drum set. You couldn't hear the guitars or vocals, but the drums carried all too well, and made it impossible for the Tommies to continue. Of course, that was pretty late for them anyway.

So when they left, Warren and I moved over in front of the ice cream store, but we couldn't start right away because as we were moving our stuff, two 11-year-old girls had suddenly appeared with a ukulele and were singing songs while the dad was buying ice cream inside. It was very cute, and after maybe 15 minutes, they had $24 in their dad's baseball cap on the ground. They were thrilled to have paid for their ice cream so easily, but quit playing to eat it and listen to a few of my songs, and then wander off.

The rock band noticed that we had moved, so they moved to take over the Fingerhut side. That made the drummer way louder and very distracting for us, and that combined with the reappearance of Drunk Dancing Larry almost made me give up and go home at 10 or so. But we had people listening, despite the interference, so I gritted my teeth and kept at it, and was eventually glad I did.

The week before, we had a birthday party stagger through, and had me sing Happy Birthday. I considered giving the birthday girl a fingerlight, but figured that, although those are very popular with the little kids, probably not so much for adults. That led me to wonder what might work for adults, and I came up with, found, and bought a "Fancy Princess" tiara set, just to have on-hand.

I didn't really expect to need it right away, but when a bachelorette party came through, I said, "Oh, I got you a present!", and handed the bride-to-be the tiara set. 'Cuz, c'mon, a bride-to-be *needs* a tiara.  They were all completely thrilled, and the bride was overwhelmed, and gave me a big hug. For some reason they were all big Billy Joel fans, so while I sang "Piano Man" they installed the tiara and necklace on the bride.

The dance party had begun, and as more and more people assembled to watch, they asked for "Sweet Caroline", which went over well, and then "Jenny Jenny", which I learned almost as a joke, but works great if the crowd is receptive to it, which they were. That dance party alone, and one of the girls' comment that we had "made the party", made the previous three miserable hours worth it.

Even after the bachelorettes left, the dance party kept going for a while, and when the rock band across the street finally gave up, we started having some good interactions with the late-night crowd (and ended up playing until after 1am).

A group of high school girls came by and they got all excited to tell me that their friend was a "really great singer". So I got out the spare mic and had her sing "Part of Your World" from "The Little Mermaid". I'd say that her friends were a bit generous in their assessment, but she was game, and that's half the battle.

We had a group of three young men from Germany, two of which bought CDs, and three people from Mexico who didn't seem sleepy at all, despite it coming on midnight. The guy was probably kidding when he mentioned "La Bamba", but I fired up my "Twist and Shout/La Bamba" medley and they hooted and hollered.

And when a slightly drunk lady came by and asked for "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", I dug up my partly-working version of it and played it anyway. My "blue eyed soul" voice is passable, and the harmony box does a good job with the Righteous Brothers sound, but imitating a full orchestra with just my guitar is pretty much impossible...