Keith at Pub 32 -- Friday, 08Jan2016

After my incredibly successful Open Mic audition for this place, I was really looking forward to my first Real Gig there. But, as always, it didn't go exactly as I pictured it...

To start with, I'd expected the first hour or so to be "Restaurant Time" -- quiet, with people eating and me playing soft music. But when I got there, it was already packed, both the restaurant and bar sides. And *noisy*. I suppose I could/should have taken the hint that it was already "Bar Time", but I'd been told to play quiet stuff for dinnertime, then go to rowdier stuff "later" (whenever that was).

The place is a weird shape -- long skinny "restaurant side" to the right, bar in front of me, and another square bar-room to the left. So I pointed one speaker toward the restaurant side and one toward the bar side, and started up. The bartender told me to turn *up* a little, so that was a good sign. I couldn't really hear myself even then, but I played on.

I couldn't see most of the restaurant side, but some ladies in the bar-room started clapping enthusiastically, and after a few songs one of them came over with a twenty for the jar! Since no one was really positioned to shout any requests at me, I hadn't passed out the newly-rowdy-song-enhanced Song Lists, but I felt like these ladies deserved to make a request, so I walked over there to hand them a List.

That snowballed a bit, and I ended up taking several requests from that room, almost all "mellow songs". I had feared this eventuality -- the management would want me to play Rowdy but the actual customers would want Mellow, and that's pretty much what happened. I was hoping that the owner would notice the happy people and realize that my approach was working, but how often has The Boss been perceptive and "get it" when I didn't do exactly what he said? I shoulda known better...

So, apparently he wanted it to go Full Rowdy at 10:00, but instead of asking me to do that and letting me at least try (especially since I'd spent the week learning and practicing lots of uptempo stuff), he decided to send me home and put on the house music instead. Ouch.

He insisted that I was "really talented" and that the restaurant side could hear it really well and loved it, and that he'd have me back sometime, starting earlier, to play a dinnertime set -- but he may have just been "softening the blow". I guess we'll see.

But this may well have been a "be careful what you wish for" thing. I honestly think I can pull off "Sweet Caroline", "867-5309", "Don't Stop Believing" etc. as well as anyone, but pumping music into a loud unresponsive room wasn't really much fun anyway. I'm probably better off playing quieter stuff into a quieter room (if they ever actually call me back, or somewhere else for that matter).

But the extra disappointing part was that I'd stumbled on an electronic bass drum at the Goodwill store and been practicing for two days solid to be able to add that to the mix. It *really* helps make the rock songs sound right, but I'd only gotten to play it for 3 or 4 songs before he shut me down. And it was working -- I saw several people rocking to the beat as I played it for my last song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", which sounded *amazing* (and I'd learned special just for this gig -- the owner is Irish).

Ah, well. Best laid plans... It'll sound great down in Laguna, too, where the people who want to listen stick around, and those who don't, keep walking.

So it was kinda fun, and I'd do it again, but overall disappointing just 'cuz I they didn't give me a chance to do what I was going to try to do -- step up my "bar game". Oh well.

But the weirdest part was what happened right afterward, but I suppose that's a story for the next post...