New Year's Eve

COUNTDOWN TO NEW YEAR’S EVE
After our return from our annual gig on Olvera Street, we slept a lot on Christmas Day, then we began to gear up for playing on the roof.
Monday: we practiced four hours.
Tuesday: ditto
Wednesday: ditto
Thursday: Chon wired four lights in our tejaban as we will need them. We practiced only a couple of hours.
Firday: more wiring and more practicing.
Saturday: Chon got up at 5:15 a.m.!!! We moved speakers and cables and equipment from the ground level to the tejaban. It was a challenge because they had been stored for more than a year. Chon has an endearing habit of delicately and artistically making little humorous arrangements of small things on top of stacks of other large things. This makes for much tipping, replacing, falling and swearing when we are removing the large things. We hauled equipment, set some up, then hauled more equipment.

Morning

Afternoon

Afternoon

In the afternoon, Victor, a nephew, showed up to negotiate about music. He rents DJ services, and he had been hired to play five hours. WE had permission from the sheriff, and HE was being paid. All was settled amicably, and it was agreed that we would start from 9:30 to 11, then he would play until the midnight countdown, then we would play until two a.m.

Afternoon

And that’s pretty much how it went. Our first set was great. We were prepared for blank stares and nobody dancing - that happens every year. We play some familiar tunes, and sometimes people will dance to them. They do not seem to have the imagination to dance to similar songs. We had selected some very exciting cumbia covers. Anyway, the sound was very, very good - we could hear well, and I think the effect for the audience was good, too.
The DJ played for an hour, and nobody danced with his music, either.
Our next set, a long one, was not quite as good; I’m not quite sure why. The energy was good, but - we just didn’t play quite as well. That’s how it goes sometime.
It was a typical small-town night, and as the DJ was playing, around 3 a.m., a fight broke out somewhere up the street and the people all rushed to see. Victor was left there in the street, looking a bit shaken. We helped him tear down his equipment and drag it to his mother’s house close by. We ended up going to sleep at about 6 a.m.
All in all, our part of the celebration was satisfactory, and we are starting the new year with plans for recording and registering Chon’s songs, and accompanying the paperwork for the registration with videos. Where are we planning to video the performances? In our tejaban!!

Party time!