Serenity Gardens (11.06.17)

Monday nights at Serenity Gardens are always good. Photo by Kat.

It’s the first Tuesday in November today, which means that it’s been exactly a year since a good chunk of the USA went to the polls, confident that they’d elected the first female president of our country. I was really feeling pretty upbeat that day; while I wasn’t a huge fan of Hillary Clinton (I’d been a supporter of Bernie Sanders), I thought she’d do a relatively good job as America’s leader. It was later that night that I, along with a whole lot of others, watched in disbelief and then dejection when Donald Trump -- while losing the popular vote -- won the presidency based on electoral votes.

To say it’s been an interesting year since then is a hideous understatement. By nearly all definitions, it’s been awful. In addition to the horror of Trump’s complete lack of understanding of the job of POTUS and the growing evidence that he and his campaign colluded with Russia to get elected, we’ve faced a series of natural disasters and several of the worst instances of gun-related mass killings in modern history (not to mention our first nuclear saber rattling in many years). On a personal level, both my father and Christina’s father passed away in consecutive months, in September and October. It's been rough.

Good Times Coming Soon
I’m not here to dwell on those negative aspects of the past year. In fact, there are some tremendous positives that have come from all this. People who had previously been mild and complacent are now active and involved. So many important issues that had been pushed under the rug are being brought to the forefront... racism, wealth disparity, sexism, sexual assault, foreign influence on our elections, the needless buildup of our nuclear arsenal and much more. These topics are more out in the open than they'd ever been before. As part of the investigation into the Russian issue, we're also finding out more about the wealthy using offshore tax havens, and that's an issue that crosses all political outlooks. It's also quite possible that the outing of powerful sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein wouldn't have happened if people hadn't adopted a new willingness to fight injustice as has happened over the past year.

While it’s terrible to see our country going through these difficult times, my honest opinion is that without this opportunity for bringing our problems out into the light — many of which were problems long before Trump arrived — we’d have kept going on with these issues as business as usual. How ironic would it be for Trump’s presidential legacy to end up being almost the exact opposite of his intents? He’ll claim that was his plan all along, of course, and that’s fine with me. In the meantime, I do the things that I can do to help make life a little better for those around me, and one of those things is playing live music.

Crazy times got you down? Live music can't fix the world's problems, but it can help some things feel better for a little while. Photo by Kat.

Rocking Serenity
Last night was a great show at Serenity Gardens. I don't measure the greatness of shows based on the size of the crowd, ever. I base it on two simple factors: a) did I play good songs and play them well? and b) were the people who were there truly enjoying the show? The answer to both questions was definitely "yes" at my show last night. I did a couple of tunes I hadn't done before and enjoyed playing both (which truly were "new" songs, both having been released in the past few months). I pulled some other tunes from the deepest recesses of my repertoire, and those were fun too.

The people who own and help operate Serenity Gardens are super nice, and extremely supportive. I can tell you, having performed at about 100 different Second Life venues over the last 11+ years, these are people who know how to do it right. They're well organized, well staffed, and treat both the artists and the visitors with respect. I hear these crazy stories of things happening at other places, and think to myself how glad I am that there are places like Serenity that truly live up to their name. I do feel a sense of serene calm while I'm playing there, and it's truly a pleasure.

Serenity Gardens is truly a nice and relaxing place for live music in SL. Photo by Kat.

My view from the stage. Photo by Kat.

Serenity Gardens set list...
Love Ain’t for Keeping (The Who)
Mexico (James Taylor)
Linger (The Cranberries)
*Same Sun (Real Estate)
Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)
Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
Nearly Lost You (Screaming Trees)
Perfect Day (Lou Reed)
Six Underground (Sneaker Pimps)
Plush (Stone Temple Pilots)
Say Goodbye (Beck)
*Intercontinental Breakfast (Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile)
Saved by Zero (The Fixx)

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

Big thanks to everyone who came to the show, with special super thanks to those who helped support it!
ErikKottzen Resident, XdazedserenityX Resident, go2smoky Resident, Mikes String, not4gods Resident, Tyche Szondi, TheaDee Resident, Kat Claxton, my most awesome manager Maali Beck, and the great management team of Serenity Gardens, Tilly Rose and Ilsa Wilde!