The Loft (12.20.12)

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will verify that I really, really like performing at venues in Second Life where I'd never played before. I'd heard of The Loft many times over the years, but for whatever reason, I never had an opportunity to play there.

Here's an important lesson for your real life as well as whatever you do in the pixel world: things tend not to just happen by some cosmic force. You need to help them along. And in this case, I never bothered taking the simple step of saying, "Hey, this seems like a cool venue. Perhaps I'll find out if I could do a show there some time." No, I had to wait for the weird magic of an interconnected world to get a show at The Loft. That's not the best way to go about it, but sometimes things work out in ways that you wouldn't have expected.

It turns out that the person who runs The Loft, a lovely lady named Allegra Genira, discovered that she and I had a mutual friend on Facebook. No big surprise there. But this connection was made well outside of SL; I was friends with a person who plays in a band with her husband. As it turns out, we realized that I got into SL, then pulled this friend in, and that's how Allegra herself ended up discovering SL. Ah, how the spider of circumstance weaves its unpredictable web, or something.

Having fun with a cool crowd during my last show of 2012. Photo by Kat.

A good show to end another good year of rocking the virtual world. Photo by Kat.

Anyway, I enjoyed my Thursday night show at The Loft. It was my last SL performance of 2012, as I'm too busy for the next week or so to take any gigs in world, and I tried to make it a good one. DimiVan Ludwig (the SL persona of musician Chris Harlow), a long-term fixture in the SL musical community, was on before me, and I enjoyed his set as I got warmed up. We had a nice crowd, a good portion of which weren't my usual fans, and I liked the opportunity to introduce them to my stuff. Also, being less than a week before Christmas, I threw in some interpretations of a couple of holiday tunes.

The Loft Set List...
Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Save It For Later (English Beat)
Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy (Bing Crosby/David Bowie)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Traditional)
River (Joni Mitchell)
Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
*Take Me to the River (Al Green)
Fade Away (Zak Claxton)
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Neil Young)
Tribute (Tenacious D)

*Indicates the first time I've performed this song in SL.

Huge thanks to everyone who made my debut at The Loft fun, including the following who helped support the show!
Triana Caldera, Beth Odets, TheaDee, Kat Claxton, Crap Mariner, my manager Maali Beck, and The Loft's queen of fun, Allegra Genira!