surprise, surprise
MSR played their first gig at the Kozi Café today…M and R have played there a bunch, but the THREE of us hadn’t played there before…other than certain people singing from their seats (loudly), it was a fantastic gig…SLR and her significant other showed up; it hadn’t occurred to me to even invite ’em–Bel Air is SO far away…I was kinda surprised that she WANTED to sing a couple; but she did…on the other hand, I wouldn’t go all the way to Bel Air just to watch HER from the sidelines…she and I and Rick did SUMMERTIME and our arrangement of HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN…I think she blew everyone away…which is what I hope for when she sings in front of people…I was lead vocalist for a pair of “new” songs–CELIA by Paul Simon, and YESTERDAY…As I’ve said before, being lead singer is something I’m not yet used to, but I’m getting better…I THINK we’ve done YESTERDAY before, but CELIA was a surprise…we did, in fact rehearse a bit before the show…
All day long I agonized over what song I would dedicate to my departed friend Bill (today woulda been his Birthday) at the last second, as we were getting to play it, I dedicated LONG MAY YOU RUN to him and the other members of the Last Chance Band…today is also the drummer’s Birthday…
getting to practice was a bit of a logistic nightmare, but getting home from the gig was easy–I got a ride from a friend…there may be another face to face reunion this coming Tuesday…we’ll see…considering it’s an open mic, the dude and I might even get to play together–for the first time (that *I* can remember) since 1974…and I was still playing mostly Drums…