busking at special event shows. people are so nice right now

[retrosurfer1959]

Three or four times a year I get the invite to Busk and play for street crowds at a couple of big art shows and special events in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. (Won't play California anymore there anti american laws piss me off so I've been boycotting that state for 6-7 years now after a cop threatened to arrest me for a oversize locking pocket knife that was in a pouch on my belt it was a hand carved buck folding knife I've been carrying for 30 damn years and never had any cop say anything other than how pretty it was, but not in Commieforina the only reason they didn't charge me for it was the show promoter was there and told them as hired security it wasn't there job to harass artists and the sergeant was probably afraid they would lose the well paying off duty jobs from a large week long event that was held twice a year. The office still tried to confiscate the knife but I told him I'd rather be arrested then donate a knife that was this nice just so he could end up carrying it.

 

I think there is only one thing in the performing world that I enjoy doing more than street Busking it's a blast. Anyway we did a two day show this weekend with playing on the street for about 6 hours both days. The weather was nice and it was comfortable since I sat on a stool this year rather than trying to stand for that amount of time which I'm not really up to doing anymore with the bum wheel. Both days were really crowded with big friendly crowd yelling out songs they wanted to have played and even singing a few versus for everybody's entertainmnet when I pretended not to know the song until that would sing some of it for me

 

Anyway back to the point of this rambling post. Times might be tough and money is short for most right now but people were in a good mood most stayed around for 4-5 songs on average and they were very generous to the case sitting there in the street collecting money. Ive been doing this for quite a few years and the take for this weekend was the highest it's ever been for a two day casual show like this. I even asked one guy why he tipped so high after he threw a fifty dollar bill in the case I saw him do it since it was kind of windy and people were putting money into a big carved clay pot that a artist near us had donated to me after watching us chasing blowing bills a few times. the pot just set in the case holding the money so it wouldn't blow away.

 

But when the guy stuck the fifty I told him there was a bunch of 20's in the case and to make himself change, if all he had was a fifty he just said " Naw you just keep it - I enjoyed listening to you so much and money won't cure the ills of the world anymore so hell maybe music and art will".

 

the whole weekend was like that everybody was so nice and in a good mood even when somebody wanted a specific song that I didn't know they were fine with that and still in a good mood - a few times I told them that if they hum it or sing it I'd fake it and sure as hell we ended up with a few good Karaoke shows.

[G McBride]

Congrats, good to hear. Sounds like it was a good time for everyone involved and that is how it should be. Hope the nest Busk works out the same for you. I have to try that some day.