People,

Saturday I played solo at a wedding. Now, being both a very mediocre guitar player and somewhat afraid of playing by myself, it will probably come as no surprise that I was out of my mind nervous.

This wasn't helped by the fact that the groom, who had asked me a month ago if I would play one song, told me three days before the wedding that he in fact needed me to take care of all the music, including the processional. His exact words were "You know, just noodle and dick around. It will be cool". Sounds like a recipe for success, don't it?

Now the great thing about playing a wedding, I thought, is the fact that it's not a day that people will remember fot the rest of their lives, so if you screw up it's no big deal. Oh wait a minute.....it's the most important day in many people's lives.

Anyway, I spent the days leading up to the big day practicing my ass off, literally. There is now just a tiny flat piece of skin where my ass used to be. And after three days I had a pretty good repertoire.

I got to the church early and warmed up for a while and then it was time to go. I was so sweaty that I looked like I was wearing a two toned shirt as I started to strum the intro music. Almost immediately I made a mistake and looked up expecting a lot of pointed fingers and angry leers. Nope.

It was then that I realized that playing a wedding is perhaps the greatest gig ever. The money is great, the atmosphere is nice, everyone's happy and no one, I mean, no one is paying attention to the sweaty guitar player. Do a passable job and there's a 100% chance that you will be completely ignored. And people, I like those odds.

After that I relaxed and ended up playing far better than I thought I would. The nervousness just kind of flowed out of me as I watched the service, maybe shed a tear and then played the people out of the church.

Anywho, congrats to Peter and Beth.