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GigLog Notes on previous shows |
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December 15: Neutral Ground December 3: Peaceful Gatherings
9-11 Soul Full Cup
7-16 Relay for Life Benefit
June 2 @ Neutral Ground Cafe, Waverly, NY
May 22 @ Soul Full Cup, Corning, NY
April 16 @Ten West's "Spring Thing"
March 26 @ Ten West
Februay 13 @ Soul Full Cup: My first time playing in Corning, NY
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Final gig for a while. Same excellent crowd. I'll miss y'all.
A good bunch of folks up Corning way who bring good music and good talk to audiences. Thanks to you for promoting the cause.
Hard to read poetry night, what with all the commotion! And I didn’t wow those college kids at the counter with my fumbling through my first tune. Still, I got better. People came, sat, listened for a bit. Some friends popped by too. But at the end, I met Brad and Jenny, and we talked in between songs, and they followed and applauded. Hell, they even had me autograph one of my posters—a Mitch first—and then Jenny said “We knew him when.” Ah, the pinnacle of fame.
Outside, under the lights, with an audience that, uh, walks around you? Who would’ve expected much? And yet a group of walkers came around the bend on the track just as I finished my third tune and said “We love you!” “I love you too,” I said. Heck, they were walking all night long to raise money to fight cancer. I was just singing for them. Seriously, though, it was a real honor to have the chance to help out. I shared the night with Jim Cunningham, swapping sets. There was much funny banter amongst all of us (especially regarding my use of the word "goo" as a verb in one of my poems), and I often saw someone or other paying hard attention to words as I read them. Jim, whose folk tastes extend to the likes of Gordon Lightfoot and Townes Van Zandt, strummed the audience along. He's local to the shop and brought along the whole PA, bless his heart. The Neutral Ground, the place, is just the perfect, funky coffee shop/community hang-out. There were people sitting and coming in and out even on this Wednesday night in a town who’s main street is populated by empty store fronts and wooden scaffolds. Waverly appears to be in the early stages of gentrification, I’ll optimistically presume. But the people, they were good folk, good listeners, and in good spirits. Near the stage, hanging on the wall, is a Fender Strat that’s painted in the style of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” I looked at it for a while and then went up and touched it. Geez! It even had the lumpy and rough texture of a Van Gogh painting! And that typifies the Neutral Ground, I think. It doesn’t, from a distance, just look like a great, funky coffee shop. It really is.
It must’a been 900 degrees on stage. (Okay, divide by ten, a la Monty Python, to account for exaggeration). Ah, but Amanda provided us with iced Chai, and the people came—you people came—some trekking from as far as Mansfield, others dropped in from Corning. The highlight for me was near the end, when you all sang harmonies—beautiful resonant harmonies— on “Hallelujah” and “The Weight.” Imagine singing a melody and hearing instead a choir, complete with overtones! It was great to be a catalyst for such a thing—something bigger than one performer.
Seven acts, seventy-plus people, and warm enough weather to play outside--thanks all who shared the stage, who sang along, who belted out requests. Mansfield is serious about its shows.
Maybe I would presume too much if I were to say that this night went beyond the typical entertainer-entertained kind of show. I can say for certain that it inspired me. I thank you, this wonderful audience, for your attention—it’s a gift, after all—which led me not only to read and sing with an intensity that no amount of rehearsal could create, but also to head home and start writing and composing. Those “ooh” moments at the end of poems and songs, moments that happen once or twice a show if we’re lucky, were coming often. I took some chances and read some pieces that weren’t easy to follow, and that trust seemed to be returned. Heck, even the debuted, bare bones version of a new song thingy, “Love Comes Easy to the Old,” got a great reaction, maybe because as it was sung I felt like I was telling it to people who wanted to know. The song no doubt has, as they say, a ways to go, but, from your responses, I’ll try and get it there. Writing, writers don’t often tell you, is a collaborative effort, and I thank you for your help. I would never dare to expect that kind of caring attention at every show—but that it was there, that it was possible, well, I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Many thanks to those of you who came to the show on Friday, Februay 13th. I felt, on that date, inappropriately lucky—to have an audience of friends new to the show, repeat offenders (or offendeds?), and total strangers who passed by muttering “I like your music.” The “Love Set”:
my sets are usually organized thematically, and I tried a new one
that night. It was
Valentine’s eve, after all, and a Friday the 13th on top of
it. I apologize for not
having had the time to play
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