Last year, I volunteered to work at our church’s barbeque stand at the Potato Days Food Court on Friday night. While I was there, I could hear a guy playing music from the main stage. I went out to look and no one was really watching him. He was playing guitar and singing but most songs were either unrecognizable or pretty lame (such as “You Are My Sunshine”). I had thought about playing for Potato Days before, but hearing that sealed the deal – I had to see if I could get a group on stage for this year.
I started talking to my friend and neighbor Leah Baker about this because she’s sung in bands before and I got to hear her perform with her band and her husband’s birthday party a few years back. We had talked briefly about playing together in the past, so once I got the spot in the Potato Days lineup, I asked her if she’d join in. I also asked my brother if he wanted to play – he helped record my first album and we always enjoy jamming together. Unfortunately he had a wedding the week of Potato Days and couldn’t make it.
Once Leah and I learned we were on (we were listed as Entertainment – TBA on the posters), we figured we should probably practice. A lot of times when I’ve performed I’ve practiced a little bit, but mostly I’ve just been winging it. No wonder I get nervous before playing. Instead, we set up 7 practices and were serious about making sure we got through our material. I had a few songs I wanted to do, she had some she wanted to do, and I had a few that I thought it would be cool to play if she wanted to sing on. So we settled on a list of songs, but we ended up making a few tweaks at the end. After our last practice (the Wednesday night before the show), we were feeling pretty good about where we had come from. We played through our whole set and it came in about an hour, so we figured we were ready to go.
Our show started at 9 pm – so we got there about 45 minutes early to start getting ready. The previous performed, Eldon Johnson (who is very good by the way), was supposed to end at 8:45, so we’d have some time to set up before the show. With Eldon playing loudly, I couldn’t really find a place to tune up my guitar, so there really wasn’t much we could do before 8:45. He actually ran a few minutes long, so it was about 8:50 when we were on. I dragged my two guitars and keyboard up to the stage, but as I was doing that I got stopped by the person (Lee) who was coordinating the musical events. He said he had something for me. He handed me an envelope and said we were getting paid for this – I was pretty shocked; I thought we were playing for free. So we got everything going on stage and worked with the crew (Gary and Gary) to get our mics set up and the cords connected to my guitars. I was kinda rushing because the crowd was starting to amass and they probably didn’t want to sit around while I got tuned up. We finally got ready and started the show.
Here’s our set list:
- When Will I Be Loved (Linda Ronstadt)
- Amie (Pure Prairie League)
- Proud Mary (CCR)
- Fishin’ in the Dark (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
- Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
- Come to My Window (Melissa Etheridge)
- In So Deep (Me)
- Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow)
- You’re Beautiful (James Blunt)
- Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn)
- Be My Baby (Ronettes)
- Moondance (Van Morrison)
- Dance with Me (Orleans)
- Upside Down (Jack Johnson)
- I’m Yours (Jason Mraz)
We had another song ready – Leah was going to sing “I Feel Lucky” by Mary Chapin Carpenter, but after Dance with Me the sound guys told us we only had time for two more songs and I was just about to start Upside Down at the time. Apparently the kids in the audience had been looking forward to that song (because it’s part of the Curious George movie). They had been asking me throughout the set if we were almost done. I thought they were sick of us playing, but they had asked Leah earlier when Upside Down was going to be and she told them it was at the end of the set. We seemed to get a great response out of our rendition of I’m Yours, so we moved that to the last song and wanted to keep that on the list.
Here’s a little snippet of the song “Amie”:
It was great to see all the people who came to watch the show. Most all our friends in town made it out, so that was really cool. The kids had fun dancing along to the songs and a conga line broke out during Brown Eyed Girl.
All in all it was a great experience. It was a lot of fun to work with Leah and get ready for the show. I wasn’t as nervous as I had expected for the actual show and it was just fun to be up there jamming away and seeing your friends in the audience having fun. Thanks to Leah for playing – for making sure we practiced, for going along with a few crazy songs that I wanted to do and for giving me confidence we could pull it off. Hopefully we can do it again next year.
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