The World Famous Dark Horse Saloon, Boulder, Colorado

After the hike with Seth, I showered and headed off to find the world famous Dark Horse (that's how they answer the phone) – a funky joint, it turns out, with tons of interesting stuff on the walls which I completely failed to photograph. I am a bad documentationer. Ah, well. Anyway, I was supposed to play outside; which, given my experience in Grand Junction, and the state of the sky in Golden when Seth and I went on our little walk up the bluff, seemed a tough option. I headed on over anyway, thinking I had to show up and give it a shot. Just as I pulled into the parking lot, the sun came out – and the clouds split up to reveal a huge swath of blue sky. It had been clearing up while I was driving, but the sun was still behind the clouds, and I didn’t really have a view of how much through the roof of the car.

The patio at the Dark Horse was pretty sweet, surrounded by 8 foot walls with glass constituting the top four, providing a great shield against the wind, and a nice little mini-greenhouse effect to keep you warm – provided it was sunny. I went in and met Mike, who had booked the show; he proved to be a really friendly, instantly likeable dude. He looked at me and said, “you’re playing here in a week, aren’t you!” to which I replied, “I’m playing here today!” Pretty funny. He had someone open up the door to the patio so I could get my gear inside.

The wind continued to blow a bit while I was setting up, and the clouds continued to move; I had gotten there around 3:40, so over an hour before the gig – which meant there was lots of time for me to relax, set up and upload pictures on my computer, and for the weather to change. I decided to record the show, figuring that it was an interesting enough joint that it might be a lot of fun.

By 4:55 there were like three people on the patio, who moved inside once they finished their cigarettes; there was one dude doing homework against the patio wall. I figured I’d give it a bit before I started, to either let more people show up or the sun come out; Mike had just gotten off work, and he came out and shot the shit with me while the sun went behind the clouds again and it cooled off considerably. Even so a handful of people, mostly friends of Mike’s and/or some co-workers, had turned up by then, so I started playing.

The guitar strings were damned chilly with the sun hidden, and I found my fingers growing a trifle clumsy as I tried to do stuff that would normally come easily. Nothing to do for it but play through it, though, so I kept at it, to good response from the people there. I loosened up, and started telling stories and bantering. One guy – Joey - kept asking for Freebird, and being shouted down by everyone else there. He proved to be a pretty good sport about me giving him shit over the mic, laughing along with everyone else, and thus the best kind of heckler. He told me later, he had a buddy who used to do comedy, and who would ask him to come to the show and start shouting dumb shit, so he had someone in the crowd to play off of.

Mike and his buddies sat and listened intently to almost every song, apart from some brief moments interrupted by the usual stuff that interrupts things in bars. He and Curtis, who worked there also, laughed at appropriate moments in the tunes, and caught some of the more subtle lines (read: stuff that most people don’t end up reacting to), and in general proved to be great audience members. (Curtis told me at set break that he mostly was into hip-hop, but even so was really digging my tunes; it’s always great to reach someone who’s into a vastly different style of music). They were being so responsive ant attentive in fact, that everyone else there started following their lead - which got me wound up and playing better, bantering better, and so on.

It had been cloudy for 45 minutes or so, and increasingly chilly as the clouds ate up more of the sun; Mike brought me a cup of coffee, which warmed me up quite a bit (especially when I stood there with it in my hand while I told a five minute story, which I can’t remember at all). I started playing “A Step in the Right Direction”, which people reacted really well to; Mike and Curtis both were catching some of the odder, quirkier lines, and everyone else there was getting into it, too. In the middle of the bridge, which culminates with “It’s a step in the right direction” repeated twice, the sun broke through the clouds, and everyone went berserk. It was an extremely special moment, and it set the tone for the rest of the show, and for how I’ll remember the day.

From that point on, more people filtered out onto the patio, and things warmed up even more – both in terms of the weather, and in terms of the crowd. Your Favorite Restaurant (which I went into once Joey, the guy who kept asking for Freebird, asked if I did any country) went over great, but so did almost every song. It’s not often a show goes that well, with the right crowd in the right mood. It was only the second show I had played all tour where I didn’t have any friends or people I knew in the crowd at all to help swing the mood, and it was easily the most fulfilling of them all – like winning an away game, I suppose. You can tell when people are really picking up what you’re laying down, and when they’re just enjoying you as background music, or when they are digging it, but maybe not resonating with everying you’re saying. People there seemed to get it. Of course, being as how I’m three weeks into the tour, playing almost every day, my chops are pretty sharp; and I felt very good about the performance.

From the funky to the strange to the folky to the country, every song I played went over really well. This tour has had some mediocre gigs; where peole haven’t been too excited or interested in the random longhaired dude playing and singing in the corner, or haven’t been demonstrative, or just haven’t been there. This was a fulfilling show; if you get one gig a tour that goes as well as the one at the Dark Horse did, I think you’ll be a happy performer. They were enthusiastic about having me back.

Off to Taos, NM, today, to play at Shadows Lounge and Grill. Back to the Land of Entrapment, and green and red chili.