Dulono's gig on the 4th

It's Sunday and Lynn and I have sort of recovered from playing 4 hours at Dulono's last Friday. We were amazed but ultimately not surprised at the number of people who turned out. Lynn had sent out a 'mark-your-calendars' email in December, and a lot of people told us they had and were planning to come. We put posters up at church and in our neighborhood coffee shops and stores and 1/4 page 'flyers' at Cuppa Java. Tommy was home and distributed posters at places in uptown and in the end brought in over a dozen of his friends. At the end of the night, the manager of Dulono's said that if he had known, he would have upped the staff a bit. He said Al Jesperson usually warns him if a bigger than usual turn out is expected, but he also said that we put on a good show and he'll be glad to have us back (yippee!)

I had come down with a cold earlier in the week and although my voice was recovering by Thursday, I was a little worried that it would affect our performance. However, it stayed strong throughout the night just getting a little rough at the end of the last set. We had prepared 3 sets of 14 songs each and that pretty much filled out the evening. We started the last set at about 5 to 11 and augmented that set with 3 'repeats' from the first set, so did a total of 45 songs and tunes. Both of our sons were 'impressed' that we knew that much stuff and also with the new songs we added since they last heard us. Although there were a few word flubs, I was really pleased with our playing and singing.

Our sound system was adequate, but I did have the master volume cranked over 3/4 of the way toward max. Of course Dulono's is a restaurant and bar - there was lots of crowd noise and 'movement'. I saw a number of people trying to listen and we did turn up the sound after the first set. At the beginning we had Dave Leussler listening and had a pretty good balance, although there were feedback issues with my guitar (which I think got fixed by the 3rd set).

When we were done, we had some help packing up then had a pizza and a coke before loading up the car. We also got paid -- in cash. (This was one of our best paying gigs - the money is similar to a good night at Tapestry, but we get to keep it all; however, I'll still be keeping the day job.) We got home well after 1:00, then unpacked the Van and didn't really get to sleep until 2:00. Although we might have slept in a little more, we had to take Tommy to the airport at 9:00 so didn't get enough sleep and spent Saturday kind of trashed and 'napping'.

Lynn said she was going to make a list of everyone she remembered coming. I know a few people came and left before getting tables. It looks like we'll be doing this again, not sure we'll ever get as large a crowd again, but at least for the next one or two bob-i-lynn gigs Dulono's will be staffing up.

This marks another stage of our development as a 'band'. We now know we have the stamina and the repertoire to play a full night at a 'club'; and from feedback from both friends and 'strangers' know that we put on a pretty good show. I guess another lesson is that the music we play is somewhat 'obscure', but a lot of people like it, even if they aren't old-time or bluegrass music fans. We're also pretty sure that one night in the weekend is about all we can handle, we can do a Friday or Saturday Dulono's type gig, but not a whole weekend.