Bethesda

I ask Kristen, the drummer,
for a lot of favors.

She is always very nice
about helping me out,
playing gigs, carrying equipment,
attending incredibly frustrating
recording sessions where I
hover over her drums like
a crazy person.

So, when she asked me for a favor,
to play a set with her at the
Bethesda Norwegian Lutheran Retirement Home,
I agreed.

That's right,
this morning,
after waking up at 7 am,
Nice Peter played a set of music
at the Bethesda Retirement Home.

Many records were set
for this milestone of a performance.

average age for an audience: 84 years
start time for a show: 10:30 am
repeats of You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine: 7

My favorite part of the show was the beginning.

I should explain,
Kristen has been working
part time during our break from touring
at this home, as a life enrichment coordinator
on the weekends.

She goes in, brings movies,
sings songs, does knitting,
tells stories, and generally
makes an attempt to enrich
some lives, some very long lived lives.

She's a real angel, that Kristen.

We arrived early,
and I was to finish setting up
while Kristen went to gather
the residents.

She explained to me
that some folks would
start wheeling as early as 9:45.

Wheeling?

oh.... wheeling... I get it.

I was tuning my guitar,
and strumming a little bit,
when the first lady was wheeled
in by one of the other assistants.

I said, "hello" and smiled,
and she stared into my soul.

umm...

well, I might as well
keep strumming.

So I strummed.
I was making up
little chord progressions
for a time while other residents
began coming in.

The audience was filling
up with 10 to 15 relatively
unresponsive, very old people.

I just kept strumming,
and smiling,
and strumming,
eventually I ran
out of new guitar ditties
and I started into instrumental
versions of standard Nice Peter songs.

I started to sing Red Line Train at one point,
but then I backed off and just kept strumming and smiling.

All the while singing the lyrics in my
head and trying to grasp the ridiculousness
of the entire situation.

I wondered, for a moment,
if the sudden shock of hearing
what I was actually playing might
jolt some of these folks into cognition.

Some sort of fantasy developed in my head,
I put Richard Prior into the movie Awakenings,
using the power of profanity to bring people
back into consciousness.

Then I punished myself for having such thoughts,
and started playing Somewhere Out There.

After ten or fifteen minutes
of strumming and daydreaming,
I looked out and noticed that every
single person in the audience was asleep.

Every single one.

I've always had a knack
for following what the audience wants.

Adapting my humor and delivery
to suit the needs of the particular crowd,
so I can do my best to make sure
that every show is somewhat successful.

In this case, my audience wanted to sleep.

I found myself under the new pressure
to keep my playing smooth and constant,
transitioning from I Quit You Fat Mother Fucker
to Smoke That Weed without missing a beat.

Any sudden musical movements would
cause a head to jerk up with eyes wide,
and to be honest, it was a little easier
to handle while they were all sleeping.

After about a half an hour of this,
Kristen finally came in with some of the more active
residents, and we began our show.

Kristen on the drumset,
me on the guitar and microphone,
which wasn't really turned on.

As she tapped on the drums
like they were babies being baptized,
I strummed out a slowed down version
of our opening number.

It's Time to Be Gay.

No lyrics, of course,
but they were in my head,
and they were hilarious.

We finished that number
and moved on to sing alongs.

At least, Kristen assured me they would be.

"Beatles!" she said.

"They'll love any Beatles song!"

I doubted that,
but I gave it a shot.

Hey Jude drew some faint smiles,
but I think that's just because its a nice melody.

"You Are My Sunshine..!"
Kristen urged me from behind...

"they'll love it!"

And they did.

Almost every single
person in that room started
singing, automatically,
some without any other
sign of response, just lips
moving and soft sounds coming out.

Somewhere deep in these minds,
You Are My Sunshine was permanently
etched, and no amount of age,
delirium, confusion, angst,
or Norwegian Lutheranism
could possibly dampen it's joyful refrain.

It was incredible.

I was Richard Prior,
and Robert Deniro had just
caught the ball.

I played You Are My Sunshine seven times.
Just the refrain, because I don't know the rest.

"louder"

"faster!"

"quieter, now"

"really fast!"

"really slow!"

It was one of the most
beautiful experiences of my life.

The show picked up from there,
we struggled through such classics
as Singin' in the Rain and How Much is that Doggy in the Window?

I'll have to remember those at the next Nice Peter show.

If playing "I Quit" instrumental
in a chapel at a retirement home is strange,
I can't wait to play How Much is that Doggy in the Window
at a frat bar in Bloomington Indiana.

All in all,
a lovely experience.
Human beings are funny,
and having played for five year
olds and 92 year olds, I've learned
that an audience is an audience,
it's a living breathing animal
that can show incredible love
or frightening hate,
or in this case,
it can go to sleep.

-p