The First Six

It’s the morning of Touring the Ivories, Day 6; for the first time, I slept in, and awoke to a breathtaking view of El Prieto Canyon, after an evening of stargazing and sipping wine while soaking in the hot tub with new friends. First show: Thursday night at my house was amazing; we had a full house of mostly new people who’ve never been to a concert of either Michele or I. Even the songs I’ve played a thousand times before felt new to me, because it was new to them and I could feel the energy of the crowd. My favorite part was sipping some wine and chatting with everyone after the show. Second show: Friday night’s concert proved how each show is different. A private house concert in San Diego, 30 people in the audience and at least 20 of them were metal heads. The piano stood in the center of a large wooden room, and was absolutely perfect to play on except for one flaw. In spite of being tuned just hours before, one note sounded so out of tune that it was actually a different note! My performance of Master of Puppets was speeding down the track at 120 MPH when it slammed into the one flawed piano key, and at that speed, the song derailed into a massive train wreck. But “rock ain’t about playin’ things perfect” and the crowd erupted into massive cheering and applause that made 30 sound like 300. It may have been my worst performance of MoP, and yet my favorite. Metal rulz!! 2pm Saturday in Santa Monica. Roth Herrlinger joined Michele and I for this one. Being at a traditionally classical recital hall, the piano was perfect (all 88 notes this time). One girl, a long time Michele McLaughlin fan, and a brand new fan of my music, had emailed several requests of which of our songs she’d most like to hear, and her requests became our set lists. She displayed so much passion and appreciation for our performances after the show, that her enthusiasm alone would have made it worth the trip, and yet, there were 40 other people lined up at the CD table who couldn’t wait to talk to us and have us scribble on their new CDs with our silver Sharpie pens. I love music so much I would still keep doing it even if no one listened. But to see people respond in this way… it’s unbelievable. I can’t believe this is my job. I’ll never take it for granted.