Another Great Weekend!

That's the thing about a weekend of great gigs - you wake up Sunday morning and test your voice to see if there is enough there and, as was the case this morning, there was and all I want to do is find a gig for today.

I guess I am a lifer. I like playing and on a good night I couldn't care less if there are people there or not. This is an attitude that might not be good for business. This sort of unconditional enthusiasm for the trade might bring about a certain amount of mediocrity but it is what it is. Last night was at the Hunt Pub in King City and I thought it might be slow - long weekend... the FIRST long weekend of the summer usually sees most patrons leaving town and that was true last night.

It wasn't until my first request for a Sam Cooke tune that I filled off the top of my head and without the support of the 21st Century Binary Backup Band that there was any indication that the night was going to go well. But after playing a Frank Sinatra song; way outside the box for me, that I realized that an anything goes night might bring about more fun and laughter than running through the regular songlist.

Then, someone asked for Elvis and that was followed by someone asking for Suspicious Minds and my opening line was... "We caught him on Crack" and managed more than a verse of the strangest current event Toronto has to offer and an ode to Rob Ford was born.

So the end of the night comes and people tell you that they stayed longer than they intended and thought they were well rewarded for their loyalty... and as an entertainer, you start to think - "how do I do that every night?". I suspect that I can't.

But one thing that is apparent. The crowd was playing along and I was receptive. And that doesn't always work - but as Canadians and GTA'nians - we are shy. We sit on our hands and for the most part we don't take advantage of the evenings the way we could and I suspect we lose a bit because of that.

But it was a great weekend and twenty weekends that are not as much fun are worth wading through to get one of these.