Fiesta del Verano 2009

If my count is correct (and I think it is), this makes my fourth bi-annual show with the Peña: two full nights of song, dance, much nerves, the odd shot of Irish whiskey, and--yes!--even a guitar duet!

But details on all of this will follow. I know this is not my normal modus operandi, but how about we start off with some pics? These we have thanks to Drew Shinn:

And now for those details I promised. Where to begin? How about with nerves? Those of you who follow my musings here with any kind of regularity will know that I've been playing "out" more and more frequently these days. This has definitely helped (I think) to calm the general and widespread rebellion that tends to occur in my central nervous system just before a big show.

Of course more performing time also corresponds to more practice time. One of the things I found with this show was simply that I had played these song so many times that I didn't know how I could forget or otherwise screw them up.

This isn't to say that my playing was 100% perfect--there are certainly things I would have liked to have done better. But the one thing I live in mortal fear of is a "train wreck": some error so monumental that it brings everything to a grinding halt. Luckily (knocking on wood like crazy right now), I've never had one of these.

I mentioned above that Markus Kolb and I performed a guitar duet (with Steve on cajon). This was an arrangement of Paco de Lucia's total kick-ass rumba "Rio Ancho." This was also the first time I had performed a flamenco guitar "solo" in front of that many people (on Saturday the theater was probably, by my best guess, 95% full).

Right up until the opening chords, I was suspicious. Would my nervous system fail me? Would my hands turn into useless flippers on the ends of my forearms? Fortunately for me, it only took about four bars to put these questions to rest: like the other material, I've played this song so many times, it would be amazing if I hadn't been able to pull it off.

In fact, my nerves behaved pretty well throughout this show. Which meant that I was actually able (at times) to relax enough to actually enjoy performing. Who knew that was possible? This isn't complacency you're hearing (reading), though: if I've learned one thing in the few years I've been performing it's that my nervous system is a capricious beast at best. I've got a show coming up at Kristos Eastlake with Zamani Flamenco in about a week and a half (on July 12th, actually), so we'll find out soon enough if I'm actually making "progress" or if I just got lucky.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, you know what to do . . . .

~A