Lemonwheel

LemonWheel reaches "the Age of the Fish" (Paleozoic Era)

Last night was the start of achieving one of my dreams: to have a band that entertains the people, makes them want to stay out of their seats and dance. Through the years I have watched PopNFresh and observed the masses and from my first dance-band influence CandyBomber of years ago, to a more recent party band influence - 10DazeLate, to my current influence TheFlyingToasters..... last night, LemonWheel achieved the start of what I've been longing for.....Here is my recollection of our show last night at The Blind Pig in Greenwood.
The Blind Pig is a homey bar with 3 adjacent rooms, one directly in the stage area, one in the bar area and the furthest from the band, a room with some pool tables. We started our night at 9:30pm with a half full bar, mostly our friends in the band area (Kim, Scott, Kevin, Frank, Diane, Jeremy and Mike running sound, many other friends of Vic, Nancy, Bruce and John, of whom I apologize for not knowing their names). We started with a few good listening tunes and then tempted them with some dance music. It was challenging to get them started on the dance floor, but they were dancing in their chairs or "polishing their seats" as I told them "ok, when you are done polishing your seats, come on up here to the dance floor".......thanks to Kim and Jeremy for breaking the ice and from there on we had a handful of people up and down during the remainder of the set, tossing Mardi Gras beads to them and playing one long set until nearly 11pm. People started filling the bar toward the end of this set and during our break. During the break, I ran around getting many sourpuss photos and handing out more Mardi Gras beads. Many new faces had come in so I did get some strange looks from people wondering why I was trying to stick a lemon and camera in their face, but some "bit" anyway....
We started up our second set around 11:25pm with 2 listening songs and then started back up on the dance music, from that point forward, the crowd stayed with us, by that time the bar was reaching capacity (no empty seats) between the band room and bar room, still with a few that I could see in the pool room. The liquor had set in and people were ready to party...... the dance floor was packed. We're not so polished at keeping the songs back to back, so of course people would sit when we stopped, but this crowd was pretty good to go take a drink and get right back on the floor. We had a couple of faithful dancers who started staying up there, even when we stopped (maybe because their seats were way in the back), realizing we'd continue with the dance music, to whom I later rewarded with flinging to them a LemonWheel thong during "You Can Leave Your Hat On". We even had a packed dance floor - 3 slow songs in a row, they packed it for the first one, we missed keeping the music going, so most sat down and then came back up with some new dancers for the second one and cheers to Nancy for noticing a couple who came up at the end of the 2nd song and looked disappointed that they'd missed their opportunity and she broke straight into "I Can't Make You Love Me" and packed the floor for a 3rd one. Then we went back into the "fast dance" music and achieved what I'd call a "Toaster" moment where we did play at least 5 songs back to back and the floor was packed continuously between songs. The next thing I know, I glance at my watch on our last song of the set and it's nearly 1pm, we were officially done at 1:30pm and so while Bruce sang Some Kind of Wonderful I snuck back by Nancy to see what she thought... she concurred we should keep going but thought the band needed a brief potty break, so fearing the crowd would leave if we took a break, I announced that the band was there until 1:30, we were taking a 5 minute potty break and would be right back so "don't go anywhere." Mike threw on some dance music and to my surprise the floor packed with people and no one left the bar. We played again to a packed house and dance floor until 1:45am. At some point during the last hour I noticed that there were no longer any people playing in the pool room, all seats were filled in the bar and band rooms, all eyes were on us......... this was one of the best, if not the funnest gigs I have played thus far.
I want to express my gratitude to all those people who have been so supportive of me over the last several years in my endeavors to make this dream happen. First and foremost, my current bandmates - Bruce, John, Nancy and Vicsta, for whom we could not have achieved this, and to Mike for doing a wonderful job of running sound and being supportive, to Jeremy for all his love and support, to Bill for his encouragement and acting as a sounding board, to Rhonda for continuing to help me find my voice, and to all the other people who are receiving this, you have in some way, whether it be playing with me in a past band and helping me to grow, to those who've helped to book the band, to those coming to our shows and dancing, or just your general moral support (including those keeping it lighthearted and suggesting I switch to Macrame' as a hobby in my down moments), I want you to know how much it's appreciated. I hope this is the first of many fun shows to come......
Welcome to the start of the Age of LemonWheel. Rock-on.

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Congratulations!!!!