K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 18July2015

It rained all day, but was predicted to stop around 7pm. That apparently and happily scared the Tommies off, and surprisingly, didn't really keep everyone away -- the traffic was only a bit lighter than usual. We had plenty of people to play for, although it was tough to get anyone to stay very long because of one homeless guy and his luggage occupying most of the bench. Sigh.

We had a few families come by, including a little Asian girl who volunteered to stand next to me to sing "Let It Go", but didn't actually make a sound. Bravely held her position, though...

The new harmony box, being bigger and smarter than the old one, draws more juice and has been responsible for the accessories going dead before the amp does for the last few gigs. So I got a new, almost twice as powerful, battery for the accessories. Apparently the amp batteries saw the writing on the wall, so they stepped up too, and we played until almost 2am before they cut out.

The late-night crowd is more affable, more demonstrative, and more generous, probably by virtue of being frequently more tipsy. I was hoping that playing dance tunes would capture some of the Woo Girls zooming through, which has worked in the past, but this time I never could get a critical mass to get a party started. I even learned the Chuck Berry song that Uma Thurman and John Travolta twist to for the dance contest scene in "Pulp Fiction" ("C'est La Vie"), but never got a chance to see if the Girls would recognize it as such. Maybe next week.

Around 1am a wedding party came through and the newlyweds stood in the middle of the corner looking like they wanted to dance. I immediately fired up "Wonderful Tonight", and they, and the rest of the party, just melted. The bride even had long blonde hair, as specified in the song. I had a feeling that I'd just created their "Our Song". (And who'd'a thought that Eric Clapton would write the most romantic song of our generation?)

Seeing how pleased the newlyweds were, the maid of honor ran over to the tip jar with a twenty, where it joined several others. Counting the jar out later, it was pretty obvious that the bigger bills were higher up, i.e., later at night. I'm starting to think that going on after the Tommies, starting at 9-ish, might not be such a bad thing. And 9-2 would be a much easier shift than 7-2 on my fingers, voice, knees, etc.