Restaurant Gigs

I am contemplating a "no restaurant gigs" rule. Every time I play in one, I don't really like it. Now, some people do come up to me and say they enjoy the restaurant setting for listening to music. Certainly, if you're looking for good food, a restaurant may be a better choice than a concert hall or club, since the latter probably will charge more for poorer quality food. And some people like the fact that listening is optional in a restaurant -- you can listen for a while, then converse, then listen when something catches your ear.

I just got back from a restaurant gig, and while I was contemplating being extremely professional and politic and not getting this off my chest, I think I will throw caution to the wind and say the experience wasn't that great. Musically, there were some lovely moments, and I really enjoyed the interaction and improvisation with the other cats.

I guess two main things got me down, though. I was in the middle of singing "Autumn Leaves" when some guy darts through the door from off the street, grabs my mic to make fun of my singing and then screams painfully loudly in my ear (it also hurt the other musicians' ears since it was on mic). Talk about your dues-paying moments. Damn, how do you come back from that? Pretend nothing happened, and try to get back in the mood. After the song ended, I commented on mic about weird things happening during gigs. I was trying to be dryly humorous, but no one laughed. On the break, I was mentally berating myself for not turning the lemon into lemonade by somehow making a really funny joke about it. "I paid him to come in and do that. Does it add to the song?" "Don't mind him, he's just my primal scream therapist." See? Hilarious.

Also, sexism reared its head (that's my best explanation). This happens periodically: Some guy approaches my band and does not address me, choosing instead to completely ignore me and speak to my drummer and/or another male musician. "Wow, I love your band. Did you write that song [on mic, I have just explained that Guinga wrote the song]? Your voice is great [drummer was not singing, I was]." Later, he picks up one of my CDs. I have a sign sitting there with a picture of my face on it and two stacks of CDs with my face on them on a display rack. Despite this, he again addresses my drummer and asks him how much the CD is. My drummer points to me and I tell him. He asks the drummer, "Who do I give the money to?" The drummer points to me. There could be other reasons for this behavior, but the fact that it's happened before makes me think it's simply because some people cannot imagine that I'm the band leader.

So here I am, blogging at 1:30 AM and feeling that crappy "is this all there is?" feeling one gets after a so-so gig.