Tour Diary: Greetings from Charleston,WV Again!

It’s about 7 am on Saturday May 17 as I write. Wanted to get you up to date before heading out to Kentucky….again!

Last night the gig at Taylor Books here in Charleston was quite nice. Quite a contrast from the gig the night before at the smokey old rock joint – but each environment has its terrific aspects.

Again I was surprised by how what seemed like a weird situation going in turned into a great situation. Well, it was a bookstore cafe and I had no idea whether or not people would pay attention, listen, talk, etc.

As I set up my snazzy BOSE system people quietly worked on their laptops and I thought “Egads! They’ll have heart attacks if I open with ‘Machine Gun'”. I also thought once again “I came all the way for this?”

But here’s the BIG lesson. “This” is whatever I make it! 🙂 So there are many ways to look at and ‘color’ a situation.

I humorously introduced myself and apologized in advance for breaking everyone’s concentration ahead of time…got some giggles…ok – at least some communication was established. I then explained to them that my plan was to start nice and easy rather than hit them over the head, and slowly work them up into a lather. More giggles.

I started off set 1 with “Simplicity” and got to actually play at a reasonable volume, which I liked. Got into some toe-tapping stuff and ended with the Stevie Wonder medley.

Set 2 was fun…everyone was enjoying themselves and at one point I looked to a table of some older folks and said, “Folks, I have been nice all night and now it’s time for something not so nice – HIP HOP.” The look of horror on the lady’s face – priceless!!!!

I burst out laughing warmly and assured them that there would be no gunfire or drug dealing until after the set was over.

Once I hit “Chameleon” with the human beat box – I had those older folks groovin’ and smiling – “See, it ain’t so bad” I told them! Afterwards they wanted to know if that tune was on the CD, so they must have dug it.

The gig turned into a great little hang afterwards, and I got back to the hotel nice and early.

Special thanks to Sarah, Abagail and the rest of the staff at Taylor Books – and BUG, a young local musician who rescheduled his gig so that I could get this gig in!
=-=-

I’ll head out early today – doing another I-64 trek west, back to Georgetown, Kentucky for tonight’s gig at the Upbeat Cafe. Sunday will be the killer drive back to NYC.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the “Kentucky Fried” tour diary!

Keep swingin’!