Last performance for a little while...

Before we had a little rest to prepare for the Christmas season, Kow did a gig last night at the Kitchen Sink Cabaret.

It was a fun time. We got to the Druid pretty early, and made sure to have our mics and monitor just in case something like last year, where the sound tech wasn't prepared, happened again.

As it was, it seemed they had no sound tech at all. The bartender MIGHT be able to do it, if he calls his boss to coach him through.

Also, no mic stands.

So we had an uphill battle to begin. Not to mention that the Druid is the LAST place you want to go unamplified, since that place sucks up every bit of sound coming from the stage.

Since we got there early, Dev, Canton and I decided we'd get some food and drink. Well, I had the drink, since Canton always has iced tea, and Dev picked up some coffee.

The waitress tried giving us menus when we were walking from the bar, and Canton and I picked one up, Dev had no hands free.

When we get to the table, and the waitress (Nicole) comes up, she apparently decides that Dev would be the one she talks sass to. And decides to flirt with me the entire night.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Cute girl, shorter, raven hair. You know. My type.

It starts out with Nicole caressing my shoulder. A lot. When Dev would ask for a refill on his coffee, Nicole would say "Nope. Not a chance." Dev hides in his sweater like a turtle. I ask, "Can I have his coffee refill?"

"Sure. Coming right up."

Then she'd give me pet names, like "monkey." And I think she called me sweetheart once or twice as well.

Dev, on his journal, tells his side of the tale, saying "Our waitress, a keen judge of character, decided that in order to maximize her tips she needed to a) flirt like crazy with Jago, and b) be a gigantic smartass to me."

I do have one bone to pick about that. The flirting with me would not so much be more likely to make me give her a bigger tip. I mean, sure, it does inflate my ego a bunch, but if she was as sassy to me as she was to Dev? I'd still give her an equivalent tip.

In any case, the show went pretty well. The crowd was responsive to our songs. Both the ESC and Blacklisted did some very funny sketchcom, although Blacklisted went completely for the dark side of things, like two guys trying to molest a lamp, the drunk driver who gets home to find his family dead, the "Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Olsen Twins" song.

I'm not sure if I'd want to have Blacklisted perform that sort of stuff if we invite them to our Christmas cabaret this year. I mean, we apologized enough last year with the ESC's choice of sketches. If we decided to have both of them perform, I might as well just start drinking a crapload of eggnog during the show.

Wait. Did I say eggnog? I meant scotch.

Mario got great cheers, as did pretty much all of our songs. Before Hey Ya, you had a bunch of girls (who weren't there for the show, so much as they were there to drink) go to the performing area, and call out to us that it was Amanda's birthday.

Dev: "How old are you, Amanda?"
Amanda: "Eighteen."
Dev, me: "Well, happy birthday, Amanda!"

We then start setting up for our next song. There's a disappointed groan from Amanda's friends.

Dev: "What? Because we're an a cappella group, you think we're going to sing Happy birthday to Amanda?"
Me: (to the tune of the Blacklisted song) "Happy eighteenth birthday, Amanda-ah!"

Cheers from both Blacklisted, and Hughes, the MC, died laughing.

Me: "Tell you what, Amanda. Dev, we can sing the next song to her, can't we?"
Dev: "That works."

At which point we sing Hey Ya, and to their credit, the girls, who seemed to be the kind who really couldn't care less about the Cabaret, watched us for the rest of the set.

In all, a fun show. If only it wasn't just the usual drama/theatre patrons there...

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(edited to remove the post about the book I just finished. I didn't think it made it into the last post, as my modem happened to get unplugged en-poste. I was wrong...)