We finished up our touring season in Scotch Plains, NJ at a nice ES. We had two afternoon assemblies, starting off with the K – 2nd grades. It was a particularly noisy affair, and one not so surprising considering the age group and the end of the year. Lots of chattiness and I figured early on that it would be a lost cause to keep on shushing the kids. I was getting no help from the teachers; it seems they had given up as well. The PTA lady gushed over the performance and said that those that were listening probably learned a lot.
The second show was for the 3rd and 4th grades and they were stoked. I made a point to ask early on that they not talk while I was talking, and, for the most part, they did. The energy was high and it fed our playing. We had a tight finishing time for school dismissal so that contributed to a particularly tight show. We rolled through it, shaving a few things here and there and it was one of our better shows.
It’s been a much slower year of bookings but we managed to work in Steve Placotaris as the new guitarist, as well as surviving a couple of mental crisis’s on my part, some because of some back pain during the show and also because of the layoffs between gigs. The show remains a cracker jack assembly with unanimous stellar reviews from teachers and administrators. The band members are true professionals, as well.
We have one summer gig at a large special services facility in Mays Landing in July.