Rachel, Serenity and Carol relaxing at the Georgetown waterfront. June 8, 2007 7:22pm

It's 12:57am on Monday. Haven't been at the computer much this weekend believe it or not. The past couple of nights, I've been gigging as usual, staying out late, going straight to bed and getting up early. So I'm just getting around to blogging again.

So last Friday I was gigging at Cabanas as usual. The dancers were Ginette Perea and Claudia. We also had the pleasure of having percussionist Jason Vera y Aragón joining onstage playing cajón. Thanks Jason!

It was a special evening for all of us performance-wise for a couple of reasons:
1. Ginette, Claudia and yours truly were inspired by the show we attended Thursday night by dancer Fanny Ara and friends.
2. Thanks to the singing talents of Claudia, we had live cante (flamenco singing) to complete the flamenco experience. Usually the format is live guitar music and two dancers which is very enjoyable in itself but just doesn't compare to the level of inspiration with a singer.
3. There's nothing like good solid cajón accompaniment (courtesy of Jason) to add that extra layer of rhythm to interact with.
4. As always, it's always so much more fun when we have friends in the audience. Thank you Rachel, Serenity and Carol!

On the other hand, we also had some extra challenges thanks to Mother Nature:
1. It was so humid and hot that even I was dripping with sweat just from sitting onstage playing the guitar--I can't imagine what the dancers were going through. Oh yeah, and we had the stage outdoors for a change to attract more customers and it worked!
2. After the first show, it rained. The restaurant manager and I quickly covered the sound equipment. We ended up lowering the speaker stand so it could fit underneath one of the patio umbrellas. Before we could start the second (and third) shows we had to first mop the stage and dry it using a couple of used tablecloths. Of course thanks to the humidity there was still a layer of moisture on the stage no matter how much we tried to dry it off.

There was something about the third show that was especially good. Speaking for myself, I was already a bit tired from waiting for the rain to stop, not to mention having to wipe down the stage. But I was still determined to give this last show my best so that we could all end the evening (despite our collective tiredness) on a positive note.

Anywayz, I asked our friend Serenity to take pics. I had my camera set on slow-sync mode so the dancers aren't that clear, but the photos give a sense of the energy and movement and give you some idea of what it looks like when we perform outdoors. Enjoy!