Bryant & Stratton College (08.31.10)

Zak plays at the pretty Bryant & Stratton sim. Photo by Triana Caldera.

My final show for the month of August 2010 was at the Second Life campus of Bryant & Stratton College. I have done a number of shows for B&S over the last couple of years, to the point that their in-world liaison Turn Pike has named me the honorary dean of music at the college (which is all the more funny when you become aware that they don't have a music program there).

Despite that, Bryant & Stratton is a respected educational institution in real life, founded over 150 years ago, with both physical campuses in New York, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, and a major online education component as well. As part of that, they've used SL to help give a sense of community to their online students. They have a nice-looking island sim with a couple of cool performance areas, where I've performed several times. The event they held yesterday was their annual registration bash, welcoming new students to the school. As you would guess, the new students are in most cases also brand new to Second Life, so many of them are getting the hang of doing basic things in SL... walking, talking, and figuring out how to do that silly dance move they see others doing. Additionally, as at past shows there, plenty of staffers from the college -- all cool people, by the way -- were around to talk to the new students.

Since the event was two hours long, I recommended that they use two performing musicians to cover the time (two hour shows tend to blow out my voice, and I tend to lose some of my trademark enthusiasm after the first hour anyway). So, they brought in Matthew Perreault to cover the first hour, and I took the last hour. We didn't get quite as big a crowd as we have at previous B&S events, but it was fun nevertheless. I'm still giddy from the ability to play more cover tunes (since I've mostly played only original stuff at recent shows), so I think the set list came out pretty good.

Bryant & Stratton party set list...
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
You're Like a Cloud (Zak Claxton)
California (Joni Mitchell)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Tangled Up In Blue (Bob Dylan)
Thanks Anyway (Zak Claxton)
Go Easy On Me (Zak Claxton)
Old man (Neil Young)
Just Like Starting Over (John Lennon)
Behind Blue Eyes (The Who)

Thanks to all the new B&S students and staff for making it a fun show! Special thanks to Bryant & Stratton's Turn Pike and Starry Bloobury, as well as my Zakster Officers, Triana Caldera and Diana Renoir, for their help and friendship!