The Squamidian Report – Aug. 6 / 22
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Issue #1054

Hey There,

I played a music gig. Haven’t done that in quite a long time. Actually, it was the gig I was supposed to play the day I ended up in the hospital with those horrid kidney stones. The ‘gig’ was at a retirement home, so, senior citizens. I had contacted the person in charge of entertainment there when I had to short notice cancel, and then I had contacted her again once I was able to perform. She had been very understanding and it turned out we sort of knew each other. She had worked at the gondola several years ago and we had often chatted at that time. So, she happily gave me a replacement date for the gig. On the lead up I had explained to little 6-yr old Olivia that I would be playing for a group of seniors and she looked me in the eye and asked if I was excited to be seeing people my own age. Wow, quite a zinger.

I hadn’t used my sound equipment for a least a year and looked forward to setting it all up. So, on the day of the gig I loaded it up and headed to the home, in down town Squamish, and managed to find a parking spot. I had to be let in by a person who checked my temperature and my COVID shot records etc, then had to make a couple of trips using my little furniture dolly to bring my speakers, stands, mixer and cords etc in. It took a good half hour to get set up and by then it was time to play. My audience had come in and seated themselves. Yup, they were all my age, well, actually probably 10 years or more older but to Olivia they would have looked just like my. I had no one to help with a sound check so I set volume levels to where I figured it would be ok and no one complained. Due to ‘visitor’ rules, I had to wear a face mask the whole time. That makes it a bit interesting trying to sing through one of those as you must breath deeply at times but it worked. In fact, it sort of acted as a pop shield, and more importantly, I didn’t have to smile at anyone. In fact, I could make faces at them and they could never know. My gig was supposed to be for an hour but that audience, at least the one’s who hadn’t fallen asleep, were quite into it and I played an extra 15 minutes or so.

I takes as much time to tear down as it does to set up so it was half an hour later when I was ready to leave. The woman who had ‘hired’ me helped be get the stuff out to the truck, we had a great conversation and I expect to be called back. We shall see.

doug

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