The Day After (the first gig in San Diego)

A bit after noon, second full day in San Diego. Fell asleep listening to dorky fantasy on tape (well, mp3), and woke up feeling groggy, but pretty well-rested. Kevin has an empty room in the house, which I am occupying with a sleeping bag, a pillow, and an assortment of clothes.

The gig last night was at a place called Hennessey's, which is some kind of corporate chain restaurant. They were playing reggae over the loudspeakers; I heard Burning Spear's version of the Grateful Dead's "Estimated Prophet", for the first time in many years. It's a great version of that song, off a compilation of Dead covers that came out in 1991 or so, called "Deadicated". The place had that somewhat contrivedly relaxed atmosphere that you seem to find in so many corporate establishments; and the piped in, satellite reggae just seemed to fit the mold. This was one of the first gigs I booked on the tour, and I had no idea what to expect: a Tuesday night gig, with a good guarantee, and the person booking me hadn't even wanted to hear my music first (when I offered to email her the link to my myspace page, she said "Nah, you seem cool - I'd like to give you the gig").

I met Angella Hammond there; we had gone to high school together, and had barely seen each other in the last fifteen years or so; time and distance being what they are. I had forgotten she lived in San Diego until my brother reminded me. I wrote on he wall on facebook, and it turned out the gig was in her neighborhood (Carlsbad, CA, just north of San Diego). It is always a trip to see people from back in the day, especially because I didn't start playing music until after high school.

The place was packed when I got there, with old, bargain hunting folks taking advantage of their two for one burgers. They all cleared out by the time I played, and I was left with a pretty indifferent audience; there was a couple there who were into it, and Kevin and Angella were there and were quite supportive, but everyone else really didn't give a crap. Ah, well; a great way to start a tour, actually, since it gets that lame gig out of the way early. You have to walk into every one not giving a shit who or how many will be there, or whether or not they care. Own your musical space, enjoy the act of playing, and don't focus on the atmosphere or how people are reacting; fact is, often times (especially in restaurants), people are into it even though they're not terribly demonstrative; so you have to be able to suspend interpretation. At the end of that gig, there was more in the tip jar than I had expected; so maybe people weren't quite as indifferent as they had appeared. Nah, I think a lot of them were pretty indifferent.

Going and editing this after the fact; hopefully, I'm remembering stuff that seemed important and interesting. Retroactive blogging? Rewriting blogstory? Whutevah. More blogging is good blogging.