As if playing two straight hours at the restaurant wasn’t enough, I headed over to this fine street art show on the Northside of Bethlehem. This is always a good gig, setting up on the sidewalk amongst other artisans with families and their moms strolling up and down with their ‘arts antennas’ up. Definitely a appreciative audience mixed with familiar and new faces.
I was invited back under the stipulation that I wear shoes. I wasn’t sure if that was a joke, but it seems my signature style raises some concern amongst certain artsy types. So, I took no chances and wore socks as well. chuckle….
I had my bag o’ tricks out to connect with the kids and the two hours went quickly and enjoyably. A beautiful afternoon, and though I was on late in the afternoon (2 pm – 4 pm), I filled my mandolin case with dollar bills (the best in quite a while), sold some CD’s and got paid well for a Sunday afternoon.
One of the surprises was my friend Peggy Salvatore, former band-mate from Steppin’ Out!. She came up out of the blue, gave me a big hug. So good to see her and great to hear she is singing again with, surprise, surprise, Jesse Grim from Pavlov’s Dawgs. They are parts of my huge musical circle that I would have never suspected to connect. Wonderful.
My voice took a beating, with four hours of non-amplified playing, but I really love these immediate and intimate street performance situations. As much as I like to play with a full-tilt sound system (I AM a child of rock and roll), these gigs are challenging and I get to exercise my creative chops. Time disappears.
I just wish I had my shoes off, too.
Back to the schools tomorrow morning with RockRoots.