I had an assembly at a school I’ve played over the last 30 years, ostensibly for Earth Day. I don’t have a whole lot of material, but one teacher I’ve known for a while suggested several, so it was a good jog of the memory. As it turns out, working up the kids was just fine.
I forgot my guitar strap (that’s how seldom I’ve been doing assemblies these days) but purloined a stool from the music teacher. The kids were ready and off we went. We sang “Happy Earthday to You” to start and added Down in the Dumps, We Gave Names, Branching Out to the mix.
One of the lunchroom ladies came out and danced, to the delight of everyone.
When I finished with All Around the Kitchen, and the kids came up with some new dances. One girl did a very cool move and she called it “Comfortably Numb” and I laughed and laughed. The photographer who was taking some nice pix was in the back and he lost it. She was referring to a Pink Floyd song, a drug song, no less, and it was extremely curious as to how she came up with that one.
It was a good session with a great group of teachers and students. The teachers and principal loved it and that was gratifying, since I haven’t been doing a lot of these assemblies.