NERFA – Day 2… dun dun dun……

This is completely overwhelming! There is way too much to do in too short a period of time. I sat in a bit on a performance skills workshop with Vance Gilbert. I think I learned more about performance in the 30 or so minutes I sat in that workshop than in the 6 years I have been back to playing on stage. Wow. I think Vance is God. Or something god-like. I saw him help a guy completely transform a newly written song with a handful of suggestions. It went from an “OK” song to a “wow I really want to pay attention to this” song. Just amazing!

Then I sat in the exhibit hall at my table for a couple of hours. I met lots of really cool folks, including some DJs who took my CDs. Awesome! Whether or not they get played who knows, but I was happy to be able to make a connection with them. I think I have talked with more people today than I have in the last several years combined!
The formal and tricentric showcases were amazing, as expected. Not taking anything away from anyone else who performed, I was particularly impressed with Craig Bickhardt and Carsie Blanton, neither of whom I had heard before.

And then… the games began! Initially, I had looked at all the schedules ahead of time, and put together a list of who was playing where and when, and wanted to go room to room to hear them. Since I was so overloaded and overwhelmed, I decided to throw that list out, and just walk around the halls and pop in to hear whoever was playing at that particular point. It was a lot of fun, and I heard lots of folks I probably would not have heard otherwise.

I do think the highlight of the night was a story I was told regarding a friend of a friend, on an acid trip, who had a gnome in his closet. The story went that the gnome was actually a child with Down’s Syndrome who was taken from a playground during the height of the acid trip, and subsequently placed in the closet. Yeah… it was about that time I decided it was time to go to bed! So off I went, off to dreamland somewhere around 3 am.