Keith in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 09Aug2015

I figured that since it's summer, there may be enough traffic on a Sunday to make it worth my while. Or, since I'd had a lot of trouble getting my new guitar dialed in the night before, maybe I'd get a chance to see what I could figure out when nobody's there to annoy with all the fiddling. The Taylor website said that the pickups should be immune to feedback -- let's just say that that hasn't been my experience.

But I never got the chance. More people out than expected, and even though I was on the Fingerhut corner, I had people there the whole time. Indeed, my wife had come along with the dogs (who frequently got more attention than I did), and although she was ready to go home by 9:00 or so, there was always someone there listening, so I couldn't just up and quit until almost 10:30. I never thought it would run so late on a Sunday or I'd'a never suckered her into coming along.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my iPad (sitting on the charger back home, "getting ready for the gig"), so I had to play the whole time from memory, at which I suck. Usually the audience turns over fast enough that you could get away with 5 songs in a loop, but a family came by that knows me from Spectrum and stayed a long time, so I had to dig pretty deep. They also already own my CDs, so the kids were asking for songs that are on it that I had to turn down 'cuz I can't do them from memory. I did manage "Do You Want to Build a Showman?", "Puff", and most of "Kiss the Girl", though. And of course "Over the Rainbow". They apparently have Version 1 of the Kids' CD 'cuz they bought two more once they discovered that there are several new songs on Version 2 (and another copy of the "Favorites" CD). Big fans, apparently.

Anyway, I made do with the dozen songs I can mostly play from memory, and managed to play for three hours. Some middle-aged guys came through and one of them decided to join in on the act, singing along on "Fire and Rain". He wanted to do more, so I fired up "Hotel California", and he let out all the stops. Fortunately he had no microphone, but people passing by gave me sympathetic looks anyway.

I never did solve the feedback problem, though I got rid of it temporarily by turning the bass all the way down. The guitar sounded pretty bad, but at least no feedback. Definitely have to work on that before next weekend.