I do hundreds of songs completely from memory, chords and words. I have perhaps another thousand digital charts with lyrics and chord changes, at my fingertips for those reque$t$.
I have all of them on my PC, my laptop, my PSRS900 and SD5.
As for the latest performance, that was last night. It was rather uneventful with small but steady flow of diners/dancers. I start with a middle of the road song. Last night it was "I Can Help". Then I will so a slow 6/8 ballad. I think it was "Can't Help Falling In Love". Then I had a couple of requests; one for "Wonderful Tonight" and one for "#@%&! Brown-eyed Girl". Then a Happy Birthday (I usually always do that several times a night. I've even written a special birthday song for the club I play in.}
After that, it went something like: Fly Me To The Moon, Suzie Q, Spanish Eyes, That's All Right Now Mama, Margaritaville, He Stopped Loving Her Today, Can't You See, San Francisco, Sweet Home Alabama--maybe not exactly in that order.
Most were requests. I took a break after about an hour and a half. I try to time that so that I'm on stage when people are leaving so that can't sneak out and not leave me a tip!
Later I had a reque$t for Cajun music, so I did Jole Blon, Don't Mess With My Toot-toot, Diggy-liggy Li, and Big Mamou.
Later some "ballroom" types came in and I did Misty, Begin The Beguine and Shake, Rattle and Roll (Big band style).
As it cleared out and only a few regulars were there I experimented some, jamming with the Riff feature on the SD5. Some of the Riff styles progressions work really great, some have a their own agenda!
This was a night when I did only a few Country songs. They are usually a larger part of my evening, because a lot of our clientele is older people and/or wealthy Texans in town for the casinos.
They are filming a lot of movies here now. One night last week Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone were guests.
Tonight, it might be totally different. I hope so; I love the variety. One night I did every Hank Williams song I could think of, and that's a lot!
As far as talking to the audience, sometimes I do it more than others--depends on the feel of the night, whether I know anybody, whether they are paying attention or talking, etc.
I have the obligatory arsenal of one-liners and jokes. (I'm taking a short break, because I don't want to short anything out, but I'm warning you I'm coming right back.)
(If there's a song you'd like to hear just . . . keep it to yourself/NO I mean let me know what it is, I probably don't know it anyway.)
(Are you folks from Texas? I thought so. You can always tell a Texan, just can't tell them very much). You know, corny junk. They love it.
DonM