Audience at Pop’s Blue Moon in St Louis, Missouri.
Pop’s Blue Moon is just cool. It reminds me of some of the more eclectic bars we’ve played around the country, with strange bits of sculpture poking out of the walls, odd creatures clambouring down the ceiling, beautiful paintings on the walls and just a great vibe. I was a little worried at the beginning of the night, worried that our last gig in the Midwest was destined to be a bust, but slowly the audience filled in and at the peak, we were playing to perhaps 20 people. It’s not a lot, but it looks like more in the tiny room and they were attentive, responsive, attractive (hey, I’m a boy!) and overall it ended up being my favourite gig of this leg of the Trip.
Audience continued at Pop’s Blue Moon. I didn’t realize that that one guy had got caught by me twice. The blonde up at the front left, Jamie, her boyfriend called me middle-aged!!! At some point someone asked how old we were, or something, and I said that my Thundercats t-shirt probably said it all, and so later I’m talking to people at the end of the night and the guy’s talking about how his older brother and “other middle-aged guys like you” were probably all really excited about the Transformers movie coming out. Sheesh. I am NOT middle-aged. I’m a rockstar. I suckle at the fountain of youth that is adventure! I smote him.
Earlier in the day, Heather and I had played the storm-aborted Summer Solstice Singer/Songwriter Festival back across the Mississippi in Belleville, IL, and between the heat, the humidity, and playing the way I play, I’d split my Seagull terribly across the body. I thinki this time it’s really given up the ghost and that it’s really not worth repairing again. In any case, we enter the show with the Takamine and my hghly dubious Seagull and set up and prep up and hope for the best.
So, at first we tried to play it off and plow through the set-list as if there wasn’t anything wrong. However, the action had sprung up even worse as the split sucked up the moisture in the air, and I even got a splinter in my arm from the ripped wood.
The Blue Moon of Pop’s Blue Moon. I’m excited to return. Oh… and the owner Loved us and asked us to come back in October. Note exciting trend.
I ended up playing the Takamine through much of the night, and when we needed both guitars, I’d lie back a bit and tune between verses. At one point, playing Steel, realizing that I NEEDED to tune in the middle of the song, I got the whole room to have a little table drumming jam with Heather as I danced around and retuned. It was pretty awesome, and to have an audience willing to go with me on that was a lot of fun. That definitely wouldn’t have worked at most of the other places we’ve played recently. So, even with the split guitar, all was right with the world and I just felt good, high like I haven’t felt from a gig in quite some time.
However, having this monster non-ALF hanging above us while we were playing legitimately creeped me out off and on through the night.
There was a real synergistic feeling with the audience and I even risked getting mushy with them for a moment over it, something I don’t do much anymore because I think most people just assume you’re bullshitting them, just trying to wheedle a little bit more money out of them. It pushed us to play harder, experiment more, and the callouses, the strain, the beauty of it all came together for one of the best shows we’ve played in a long, long time.
Even loading out felt good. Driving back to Belleville, seeing Susan still waiting up for us. Still wasn’t time to make chocolate chip cookies, but left-over bratwurst never tasted so good.
Ah, the fluffy pelt of a parrot well-bathed.
