The Islands of New England (04.11.16)

Rocking for a fun crowd at the redesigned Islands of New England in Second Life. Photo by Kat.

The less I perform live music in Second Life, the more I seem to enjoy it. I know that sounds like the most backhanded of compliments, but it's true. I am glad to continue playing live shows in SL, and I have no intention of stopping. At the same time, when I only do a few shows per month, each one becomes a special event rather than just some mundane part of my week, as had been the case when I was playing four times as often, as I once did.

The funny thing is that I spend no less of my time on music itself. We just finished the final touches on recording the They Stole My Crayon album last weekend, and on days where I'm not performing in SL or working on Crayon music, I'm writing new songs and more. Anyway, it's all good, and I'm glad I have a manager like Maali Beck who never pushes me to play more often than what's ideal for me.

Enough exposition; let's get to the story... or the show, in this case. I played once again at The Islands of New England in SL last night, but earlier in the day, I was quite excited when the venue manager Christine Haiku dropped me a note on Facebook to say, "Rumor has it there is a whole new venue design waiting for you to break it in tonight... Cya there!"

The new design of The Islands of New England is lovely. It still has the friendly vibe of the old place, but with a definitely more sophisticated build and detail of design. Photo by Kat.

Ooh! Exciting. And when I arrived in the middle of my pal Bat Masters' show, sure enough, the place was all new and looked fantastic. The new design feels more open, and the overall look is just much more detailed and cool. As for my set, I had a few cool things going on. First, I did a song each by Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Deerhunter in homage to the fact that I'm seeing both of those bands along with my Crayon bandmates next week at Pappy & Harriet's. Second, in a nod to our having wrapped up the album, I did a couple of Crayon tunes. Thirdly, and this may not seem like a big deal to you, I pulled out "Old Man" by Neil Young for the first time in many years. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy doing that tune despite the vocal range that's way beyond my comfortable range.

TIONE set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Court and Spark (Joni Mitchell)
Sour Girl (Stone Temple Pilots)
Pretty Pimpin (Kurt Vile)
Bag of Nothing (They Stole My Crayon)
Swim and Sleep Like a Shark (Unknown Mortal Orchestra)
*Duplex Planet (Deerhunter)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Old Man (Neil Young)
Waking Light (Beck)
Pink Moon (Nick Drake)
*Bold as Love (Jimi Hendrix)
Tea for the Tillerman (Cat Stevens)

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

Many thanks to the cool people who came to check out my show at TIONE, especially to the following who helped support it.
Richy Nervous, AaronnMercury Resident, Brooklyn Breen, TalliskaTre Resident, Sommer Shepherd, Kat Claxton, Tippy Wingtips, Triana Caldera, Diana Renoir, RansomTalmidge Resident, TheaDee Resident, BAT8997 Resident, Aurelie Chenaux, my great manager Maali Beck, and the person who's kept TIONE awesome, Christine Haiku!