I'm back from Florida and craving every carb on the planet. We had a dusting of snow last night to herald my return. The band had a very nice weekend, though sleep was a little short. In three days we played one radio appearance, one house concert, one barn concert, a church service and a concert in a healing space (used for yoga etc.). The radio appearance was a live studio concert and interview at a station in Tampa where we've played several times before. This visit was fraught with technical difficulties; the keyboard went out in one song and, as we were playing without headphones, we didn't know it until a tech guy came running out from the sound room tugging on wires and trying to fix whatever was wrong. It was quite distracting; I played a couple of wrong chords, Chris lost track of his vocal part and stopped playing the bass altogether, so it was just me and the guitar right at the very climax of this huge song. We felt quite chagrined about it, but kept plugging away, talking, trying to be witty, and playing a few more songs. As the weekend progressed we discovered that that appearance generated more ticket sales and new fans than any other time we'd been there. We decided we're good judges of when we're great, but poor judges of whether we suck!
Friday's barn concert was that person's first time effort at a "house" concert, and he did admirably well. We had about 20 people, I think, which is more than a lot of folks get their first time, and it was novel to play in a barn. Cement floor, very clean; the horses were placed elsewhere for the evening, a PA was brought in; they had roosters for sale, so we said whoever bought ten CDs would get a free rooster! It was advertised "BYOC" (bring your own chair) so camp chairs abounded and the atmosphere was quite convivial. Our host has a plethora of orange trees, and he gave us several bags of big, juicy ones.
Saturday night was a house concert we did last year, and they brought in about 65 people again (yes, they were packed into a living room) and we had an absolutely great night. We played our hearts out, they called us up for two separate encores, and by the second one we were beat and we literally crawled up the middle aisle back to the "stage," and collapsed on the floor. Quite a fun night. It was the only time all weekend I slept in a real bed.
Saturday night I got very little sleep in that bed; we had to get up so early Sunday to drive an hour and a half to the church in Sarasota that I was edgy all night and kept waking up looking at the clock to see how much longer I could "nap." That's often the case with me on the road. I had a sinus headache, too, so by 6:15 Sunday morning I felt pretty thin. But we rallied and got to the church (a UU this time) and the service was so lucrative, we couldn't leave for the longest time because people kept wandering up to buy more CDs. We play three songs in a service (that we get paid for) and sell over $550 worth of product. That often doesn't happen when we've played two whole sets. We keep saying we ought to just play less.
Another short drive and we had a place to eat lunch and close our eyes for 25 minutes at a friend of Carol's place, (friend's of Carol's place? Place of a friend of Carol's? I never know how that should go) and then we set out for our afternoon gig at this healing space. Carol is a Feldenkrais practitioner, I might have mentioned, and this is one of her Feldenkrais contacts in Florida. The friend arranged the concert, so it wasn't a series or anything, just a one-off. A smattering of people showed up -- maybe a dozen -- and we didn't sell much, but it was lovely anyway and appreciated, and then our work was done. We had lodging with the music director of the church and her husband and their 2 corgies, and I slept on the 2nd air mattress of the weekend (surprisingly cozy; I slept quite well, though not long enough) and we got up early again to get me back to Tampa to catch my flight home.
Going over the long bridge (I don't know where this is, but you cross it when going between coasts) I noted bunches of pelicans hanging around on the cement blocks underneath. Also noted all the stuff in bloom in Florida at this time of year. I guess it's going to be the place for oranges this year because the California crops got hit by frost. I think the ones out of people's backyards are the best, anyway; it's something we always look forward to.
The flight back was seamless, and I'm finding ways tonight to not get down to the real work I have to do this week. That can come tomorrow, along with a reinstatement of the dietary monitoring, which went out the window and down the runway this weekend before it got run over by a taxiing plane on its way to Hawaii. My bandmates are still in Florida, visiting Carol's parents for a bit.
Being home is the best part. Being here, not having to leave again any time soon. My own bed, no other voices talking to me endlessly, and I can be quiet, too. Well, except that voice that says, "Eat carbs! They're good for you!" It's great to have good choices again. (Never, ever eat at Hardee's.)
