YOU NEVER CAN TELL ( GIG 101 bonus)
Warning: This article might give you a gig experience to remember! Sometimes, you never can tell…. who is in your audience! This past Wednesday, at my steady gig at the wonderful Cafe IO, I started on time and was playing straight for about almost 3 hours when the last table got up, thanked me and left. The staff had already moved into clean up and prepare for the next day mode, when a tall mysterious gentlemen with a crazy salt and pepper beard and wearing his coat like a cloak came in. He was shown to a single corner table facing me.
Here's the key part.
I have always said, and made good on, that I would play to just one person. i am sure you know these OTHER musicians who just go through the motions and will quit halfway through a song and quip "we're only supposed to play until 3" while they are putting their instrument in their case!
. I knew a saxophone player, that to this day I am not sure how notes came out, with his one hand turned over looking at his watch and his other hand turned over waiting for his check! Tru Dat!
So I told the owner, It's OK I'll keep playing until he is finished. Not looking for any extra pay, but the right thing to do. So I pulled up a deep cut "April Come She Will" from Simon and Garfunkel, finished the song, and he said "great" and named the title. After he finished his repast, the owner called me over to meet him.
He was Count Sebastiano Caponi from Florence Italy who owns wineries. It gets better, he asks "who else plays this instrument" I did the list of "Tony Levin on the Peter Gabriel records, Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group and Dream Theatre" He says Dream Theatre.
I said "yes John…" he finishes "Petrucci:" "Yes, they visited my winery and wrote and dedicated a song to me" I was floored and that made his compliments on my playing all that more valid. The song is "The Count of Tuscany" for reals. Here's the link.
http://tuscanytunes.tumblr.com/post/505434187/thecountoftuscanySo, remember you are in a creative positive adventure playing the Stick, not a time clock puncher in an Industrial Corporate Greed Complex. If you play 5 or 10 minutes over, who is it going to kill, and besides if you were in the audience wouldn't you like to hear yourself a little longer!
hope it helps,
Dave Brosky "DBro"
Lessons via SKYPE and Google +
*title is from a Chuck Berry Tune that was used in Pulp Fiction- check it out.