Bonaventure Square (06.16.16)

Doing what I do at Bonaventure Square in SL. Photo by Maali Beck.

It's Monday morning, and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee in the near silence of my new home. It really is quiet here compared to my old place, which is literally 100 yards southeast of here. But the old place is situated on a very busy street, and just being one street over into the little neighborhood where I live in Redondo Beach makes a world of difference, especially in the mornings while people hurrying to work and school would be revving their engines and honking their horns. All I hear right now is the tiny clicks of my keyboard as I write this post. It is, in an overused but appropriate word, nice.

Thursday evening, of course, was quite a bit louder in here as I undertook my first live show in Second Life since my hiatus during the move. As my dear readers know, the majority of my time spent on music in 2016 has been focused toward wrapping up the debut album of my band They Stole My Crayon. As a result of that and other reasons, I've done less SL shows so far this year than at any point since I started playing there regularly in 2007. It's like anything else in life; you need to sometimes make decisions that prioritize one thing over another, even if you'd rather be able to do both. Time is cruel; there's never enough to do everything you'd like.

So, perhaps needless to say, it felt great getting back into doing live shows with my debut appearance at Bonaventure Square. The name is appropriate; the place resembles an outdoor square in an upper-class urban retail area like Rodeo Drive or Midtown Manhattan. The people who run the place -- Meredith Lundquist-Panthar and Candi Lundquist -- seem very nice. So nice, in fact, that despite my only pulling in a tiny crowd, they enjoyed the show enough to want me back there. The reasons for the tiny crowd are completely understandable. First, I'm really not an artist who focuses mostly on SL, so I never am a huge draw regardless. Second, I'd been out of SL for six weeks, so out of sight is out of mind in any world. And thirdly, sometimes the unavailability of a few key friends who tend to pull in other friends can have a big impact. Finally, my show was scheduled there on its own, with no performance happening at adjacent times to my show to pull in some other attendees.

Keep in mind that I'm not complaining at all. The show itself went great. I'd have liked more people around to hear it, but we had a good number of the Zaksters there, and the folks who run Bonaventure Square suggested that next time, my show gets scheduled in between some other acts. It's a good plan, and I look forward to that. But regardless, I'm happy with the music I did, and was in a good mood the entire time, so I'm definitely looking forward to performing there again with a bunch more people there to enjoy it along with me. One other note about the music: I debuted "Carry Me Ohio" by Sun Kil Moon, and I can tell you now that I'll be doing that one again many times in the future.

Bonaventure Square set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
*Carry Me Ohio (Sun Kil Moon)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)
Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Wonderwall (Oasis)
*Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
Sex & Candy (Marcy Playground)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Never Run Away (Kurt Vile)
Pancho & Lefty (Townes Van Zandt)
California (Joni Mitchell)
Northern Sky (Nick Drake)
Desire Lines (Deerhunter)

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

Huge thanks to the folks who made it out to my "come back" show at Bonaventure Square, especially the following who helped support the show!
RoxxyyRoller Resident, RansomTalmidge Resident, Richy Nervous, Sesh Kamachi, TheaDee Resident, my great manager Maali Beck and Bonaventure's Meredith Panther!