Dancing Backwards

Yesterday evening I played three of my songs and two covers for a larger audience than I have played my music to in quite some time. I know that sentence structure sucks, but I get lazy when I am filled with self-loathing. Ah well.

The audience was large (about ten people) because it was a captive audience. The people had been at the venue (which was most appropriately called Arttrap by the way) to see a play. The play was called "Revolt, She Said. Revolt, Again." It was quite fantastic.

My part came in when I was asked to play a few songs, solo, on accordion and singing sans mic, after the play. Chairs were placed in an orderly fashion in front of where I sat facing them and those who were still assembled in the gallery were commanded politely (I was glad!) to sit in these chairs. I started with "Aragon Mill," by Si Kahn. To my surprise and delight a man seated in the back row (which was the second row) was singing along! He knew the words to "Aragon Mill." Wow. More about that later, maybe.

Then I sang three (three for Legba) of my songs and since my friend who was piloting the evening had announced my songs as revolution songs, I sang "With a Dollar in Your Hand," "Give the Guns to the Girls," and "Smoke Over Carolina." Then the suggestion was made to sing something everyone knew. So we sang "This Land is Your Land." With the revolution verses included of course. That song is nothing without those verses and I noticed that Google does not include those verses if you just use the Google version--so beware.

It was an interesting and unexpectedly pleasant experience. I might do it again. The captive audience did not tip me or buy any CDs but a couple of people said they liked my songs. So there you have it. Another night of performing for a few people--only this time was different since my name was not on the bill and, as a result, more people heard my songs.