Carino's 2

Carino's put on another 'Acoustic Sessions' late afternoon and evening show today, very reasonably priced at $10/head. The sessions are split between an open-mic between 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm and then booked acts from 7:00 pm until 11:00 pm. Each act was allocated a sixty minutes set and where: Jacqui Sterling, Eric Collier, Reasonably Close To Marvellous, and Brody Young.

Bill Rowley and I decided we would attend, so we made plans to share a car and the costs. We left at 3:00 and arrived at Carino's at 4:00 pm. The engineers where still setting up the P.A. and weren't in a real hurry as we didn't have an audience. The M.C. was Willy Golightly and also one of the sound engineers. At 4:30 Willy calls out "Who wants to go first?" so I rose to the call and played two tunes and a song on the resonator lap-steel. Bill Rowley went on next and I played along with him from the audience. I didn't catch the names of the next three performers, but by that time we had exhausted the Blackboard name list, so it's back to the top. I played and sang another three songs and waited for Bill to do his songs and did the solos for him.

Last time we were at the 'Acoustic Sessions' the acts were very laid back, with no go in them at all. Bill and I decided to have an early night and set off for home. Happy that we went and still quite happy with the Resonator lap-steel sound, sounds great.

I was munching on some fruit on the couch at home when I receive a Post via Facebook from Arrie (The manager) stating that Jacqui Sterling had started her set. I cheekily responded with "Did I do enough today to win a gig?". Well that was the prize for the open-mic section. Arrie fires back "Sure you did. Give me a call ..." Wow, that's good news. Drove back to Corino's and had a good chat with Eric Collier. Arrie came over and we worked out a date: 10/8/2012. Fantastic.

I had another reason to go back and that was to hear Brody Young perform. I hadn't heard him live for quite a long time and I'd heard good reports. Well good hardly seems large enough to explain the huge sound that Brody generates when he performs. Lots of energy, most impressive. Quite a different session to the first session, lots of go in the performers.

Shortly before the end I noticed Eric Collier ask Brody something. Eric asked if he could join Brody for the last song. Well, if Eric can ask, then so can I. I walked down to Brody and politely asked if I could join in as well. Brody graciously replied yes. I went to plug in was told by Willy that there wasn't a free inputs on his mixer. Oh, that's sad. I started packing up when the other sound engineer rushed up and set up a amplifier for me. What a nice guy. So the final song was Brody on vocals and guitar, Eric on guitar, Willy on harmonica and me on lap-steel. What a buzz. Very glad I went back. What a great bunch of guys.

Looking forward to the gig.