Hi gang-

Wanted to share an enjoyable experience I had over the weekend.

I played for the first time Saturday night at a local Eagles. Its one of the bigger ones in the area and had always proved elusive in previous booking attempts.

They usually use a DJ and from what I'd heard were very happy with them. There was an opening by a scheduling fluke so they plugged me in. The booker for the club said the DJ's had been there a long time and did a great job, so I shouldn't get my hopes up for a steady gig or anything.

The first sign that things were going my way was when I walked in to set up about 6:00pm and two men who are Trustees of the club came up and introduced themselves. They asked what kind of music did I play. They also complimented me on my appearance. I had on a matching shirt/tie combo with pair of dress pants/black shoes. They explained that the DJ's they always use show up in jeans and a T-shirt.

The club was packed by 7:15pm. They had a large drawing scheduled later that night. I started at 8:00pm...Playing my normal mix of Pop, Country, Oldies and some Standards the dance floor started getting filled. So far so good...

The rest of the evening went very well with the following comments standing out:

1) I kept the dance floor much busier than the DJ's ever do...

2) I kept the crowd around alot longer than the DJ's do as well. I stopped at Midnight...and there were still 35-40 pp in there, which seemed to impress everyone...

3) My volume while loud was appropriate. From what I heard, the DJ's were twice as loud and played lots of "hip-hop" to try and appeal to the younger crowd...

...There have been aditional dates booked here, which pleases me quite a bit. The club is 15 minutes from my house, which is also great.

...In a time when so many clubs have switched to DJ's instead of live bands, it was a nice feeling to go into a new club, do what I normally do and find out that a crowd of strangers would react so positively. I wasn't surprised as much as I was reassured. The contact commented several times how the crowd was NEVER this big this late...I'm sure that translated into additional bar revenues.

Just thought I'd share-

Bill in Dayton