Orlandos

I went to the songwriters night at Orlandos in Des Moines tonight with my friend Isaac (who was back in town for a week from New Orleans).

First, the 2nd best thin crust pizza ever. I missed their whole wheat crust, havent had their pizza in years.

I got to play a lot. Three short sets

Only Coffee House In Town
Bang My Bald Spot
How Can I Miss You? - I was ready to stop for the time being after that, the guy running things forced me into playing another song.
Trophy Wife - There was a couple sitting watching the TV on the other side of the room, sometime during my set they both turned around to watch. She got picked on in the middle verse.

Isaac played a very good set including a song I hadnt heard before.

Larry, the guy who runs things, played a great set with this guy with a little Yamaha electronic drum set. It looked like a toy and sounded amazing. I need one. There was also this bass player named Julie who was astounding. In the pocket, listened to everything, and was either the butt of an in joke later or was the victim of something really nasty. She was going to play a few songs and one of the guys made a comment about getting a real bass player up there. This guy came up, and he was good, but she was miles and miles better.

A guy who played harmonica with most of the folks did a set and I realized that he was someone I had been told about for ages but had never seen Kyle Dean Patton ... a great harmonica player, did some amazing pan flute on one of Larry's songs and some tin whistle early on. A great player and a great guitar player too.

I did a serious set for my second set
Almost Beautiful
Color Of Your Eyes
Hides - a great version tonight. I heard someone laugh during one of the instrumental parts, looked over and from what I could tell he was laughing in appreciation of my guitar playing.

Later in the evening a guy who did sort of grungy sounding acoustic stuff did a short set. He wrote some cool angst filled song and had an amazing voice. After him was this scottish guy who played very catchy, smart pop in a sort of Bluebells manner (the nearest comparison I can come up with, his stuff was much edgier though)

Isaac did a 2nd set and Kyle played harmonica on a song and they had a blast.

Everyone went around again and it was a lot of fun

It got to the end of the evening and I thought we are all done, but Larry asked if anyone wanted to play a couple last songs, I did

Standard
Low Self Esteem

After which the scottish guy got up again and we left after his 2nd song. I got home about 12:30 and I need to sleep now.

I'm gonna hate this tomorrow, but it was worth it. A very very fun evening.