People want to be entertained…
Last week we promoted pretty well and got about 20 people to show up at Johnny V’s in San Jose for Cuatro de Mayo. I think I personally drew about 10 people, John had a couple more and Kris had five or so. Things looked pretty good going into the show except that the streets were lined with cops getting ready for violence on Cinco de Mayo. I guess I never realized how racially charged things were around here, maybe it’s getting worse over time.
The show was awkward from the beginning because Rich was having trouble with a cold and wanted to modify some songs before we started our set. The planned meeting before the set never took place and instead turned into a prolonged sound check which distracted our audience. Once things got rolling, I had a really hard time looking out into the room because almost no one was smiling or having a good time. The applause between songs was mild at best and we had long pauses between songs that sort of killed our momentum.
A couple things worked out: the sound guy, Eagle, was very supportive of our needs and despite the small space the place was comfortable and the drums weren’t overly loud. People liked Kris’s new song even though we did it unrehearsed and without vocals.
Some things stand out that need to be improved. As a band we need to move quickly from one song to the next. Negative comments about the performance need to be squelched and in fact everyone needs to do a better job of engaging the audience. Early on Friday nights people are still fried from being at work all day and they need to be given a reason to have a good time. Next time I need to work harder to give people a reason to feel good about our music and our performance instead of waiting to feel the positive vibe from them. It’s tricky to summon that vibe, since I don’t have big stores of it, but I think that’s really what was missing the most on friday.
A lot of these things boil down to stagecraft and will get better over time…