i’ve written before about street musicians, but most of the time, they seem to work alone. last night, as i was biking down state street, i passed a quartet of musicians playing bluegrass! in the midst of all the bustle of a friday night downtown, it was so…refreshing to hear this very talented group playing really nice music! i liked the little bit i heard so much that i ditched my pizza-eating friends and biked back to where the group was playing so that i could listen longer. there was a guitar, a string bass, a mandolin and one guy switched between mandolin, banjo and fiddle. while i was listening, a guy walked by with a guitar case in hand. he looked like he might be a street performer himself. i thought it was quite telling that he stopped for a minute to listen, put down his guitar and pulled out the wallet with (presumably) his own take for the evening. he put a few bills in their violin case before moving on. i listened for awhile with a smile on my face, then left my donation and biked away when some random (drunk?) guy with a banjo walked over and tried to join in but in a completely different key. i guess that’s the risk of street performance–you could get guest artists without warning!
p.s. we actually won our last softball game of the season! (14-2) against a team that had skunked us twice already and who were batting almost twice the number of players that we were. tee hee!
