I did my last Saint Patty's party of the year last night, one that had just 50 people in a restaurant. The party was for an 85 year old lady that was born on Saint Patrick's Day, she was quite spry and had a ball. The performance time was just one hour, but I put on a 52 minute dinner midi for just a bit of soft, background music while they were enjoying dinner.

When dinner was over, the party began with the traditional lighting of the candles on the cake, happy birthday, and right into some grand old Irish tunes that were requested by her daughter. No problem. Then it was the usual routine with lots of upbeat, big band, Sinatra, etc tunes, ended the night with Show Me The Way To Go Home, everyone applauded, and I ended up with a hefty tip on top of the normal fee.

The irony of this was that I was off in a corner, isolated from the restaurant's bar, which was around the corner. As I was leaving, the bartender said "Are you part of the band that was playing in the dining room tonight?" When I replied "I am the entier band." His response, was "What are you talking about. Where is the drummer, sax, guitar and trumpet player? And, who was singing the songs? There were times when I know I heard more than one person singing."

It took a few minutes to explain that it was all coming from me, but after talking with him for just 2 minutes, he said "While you were performing, I couldn't sell a drink in the bay--everyone was at the dining room door watching you perform for the entire hour." He then asked if I was interested in a job performing at the bar a couple nights a week. He said the owner will call me in the next few weeks, and took a couple cards.

The bottom line is, if there were four of us performing, the money would be split 4 ways and no one would have made much more than gas money. Unfortunately, this business pays the same now as it did 35 years ago. The arranger keyboard has put the word profit back on my tax return, and for this I am eternally grateful. And, for those that consider playing and singing with midi files cheating, well, maybe it's time to re-evaluate your stance. As I've said many times before--this is the entertainment business, and when you stop entertaining your audiences, you're out of business.

Cheers,

Gary