K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 09Apr2016

That's more like it! The threat of rain didn't seem to keep the people away, and we had a great night, finally, after a pretty lonely winter, especially as it got later and the Party Kids came out. Not a lot of summer tourists yet, but lots of locals out.

A really nice lady sat on the side bench right at the beginning, and stayed a very long time -- practically the whole night. Her son came along and they went away to presumably have dinner, but then they were back, listening and requesting until probably 11:00. Around 9, some other guy came along and joined them too, and he apparently counted the crowd hanging around in The Corner, and went into the ice cream store and bought "a round" -- about a dozen random-flavored cups of ice cream -- and passed them around to us and everyone there! Found homes for *almost* all of 'em, too (see below).

There were lots of other older (i.e., Target Market) couples and families too, and they kept me busy most of the night. I even sold four CDs, and gave away a fingerlight to a little boy from London.

I learned "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" from "Cinderella" over the previous week, and revised the "Kids' Menu" list to show that and "Someone to Lava". I was surprised when a little girl chose Cinderella as her second request (Elsa (i.e., "Let It Go") was her first, of course (I love how little kids i.d. songs by their characters)), and more surprised that the assembled crowd didn't disperse when I sang it. Usually those slow weepy ones remind people of the dog needing out back home or some such...

Some lady wanted "modern country" a couple of weeks earlier at the wine bar, so I looked up Blake Shelton's greatest hits and learned "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking". I played it late in the night when nobody was there, just to run through it, and unexpectedly collected two "drive-by" tips. People know that guy/song? I guess I really am way out of touch.

Three high school girls came by and totally got into dancing and singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" and "Hey There, Delilah". The rest of their gang showed up and joined in for a while, but they apparently had someplace else to be...

Around 10:30, a whole herd of Party People came through just as I was playing "Wagon Wheel". It caught a few of them up, and that tipped the whole group over into a Flash Party, which I kept going by extending the song into several extra singalong choruses. I followed that up with "Margaritaville" and we had some big fun there for a while.

One pretty drunk and awfully pretty girl was clearly baffled and unused to not getting whatever she wanted, but I wouldn't let her play my guitar anyway. Sorry sweetheart, I'm immune to your Hottie Mind Tricks.

An older lady (you know, my age) came along late in the evening and kept exclaiming how great we sounded, and joined in with the Party Kids' flash party, and hung around a long time. Finally she came up and told me she wanted to hire me to play her annual Fourth of July party, and took a card, promising to email me her address so I could come by the next morning to "check out the site" and seal the booking. The email never came, of course, but maybe she'll call before July. Or not.

The threatened rain finally arrived around midnight, but we were still having fun so I just wiped off my iPad screen and kept going until I was starting to detect an electric buzzing through my fingers on the bass string. So I cut the requested "Your Song" short and packed up, fast, as the rain got worse and started ruining my stuff, but before it shorted out any electronics.

One last lady had dropped a buck in the jar as she went past, and didn't notice that she had tipped it over and right into the trash can. I had to dig the jar and a lot of spilled money out, and a bunch of it had landed in an uneaten cup of, naturally, chocolate ice cream that our earlier benefactor hadn't been able to give away. I wiped it off as best I could with rain-soaked napkins, stuffed it back in the jar, and cleaned the rest up when I got home.
So, big fun and eventful night. And all things considered, I'd much rather be chased home by a light rain than a belligerent drunk, any day.