Post-gig Calm

I often can't sleep after gigs. This weekend I watched The Motorcycle Diaries until 4 in the morning after I'd had a gig Thursday night in Benicia and Friday night in Oakland. As I'm up my mind is flooded with ideas. I think I might have had some cool ones in the wee hours. Question is, do I have time to implement them?

Thursday's gig wasn't as smooth as it had been with the same exact band and the same venue back in August, when I sold 4 CDs and the crowd was loving it. This time the groove was elusive, and the booker (nice guy though he is) was sitting in the corner staring at us. Then a man took a bunch of pictures of me as I danced/sang and at the end I learned he was a newspaper reviewer. In my head I'm thinking oh crap but as I spoke to him he said he thought I was wonderful, asked to buy my CD and complained that people had talked during the performance!

I also seemed to lack a real connection with the audience, and they didn't laugh at my jokes--at least not very audibly ;-). The last two songs I did feel some of my emotion kick in, and earlier I had gotten the audience to sing along to one bit. So I just trouped along and did the best I could. It's probably more in my head than not.

Friday I left work early, got home and took a 45 minute nap, had a coffee and went to my Oakland gig. It went well, and it was great to play with Jeff Chambers and Michael Spiro and David Flores again, as well as for the first time (on my gig) with Stephanie Ozer on piano. I sold 2 CDs and gave autographs, and one guy told me he was a producer looking to record people like me in Mexico. You meet people like that on occasion, and 90% of the time they're just jiving you--who knows. Again, the audience connection was kind of elusive to me. I don't know, perhaps it was me? But I just tried to feel the emotion of the moment and communicate it, and I think I did that well.