Adams Mountain Cafe

  Photo by Ted Castro

Finished up two days of gigs at Adams Mountain Cafe in Manitou Springs Colorado. It was my first time playing at this venue.

Manitou Springs is a funky, cool little town just outside of Colorado Springs, lots of great shops and places to eat. Adams Mountain Cafe is on the main strip in a old historic building. The room I played had high ceilings and was long and narrow.

I decided to try out a new setup for my Stick, which was to just run it through a small mixer with built in effects into my Roland KC-300 keyboard amp. Usually, I have been using a Line 6 X3 floor processor to play through, but I like the simplicity and ease of this new setup, If I need to adjust EQ or levels the mixer is easy to reach and tweak. Nice clean sound with just a touch of reverb, the room took care of the rest.

It was quite interesting, I played at what I thought was a very low volume, but people said they could hear fine at the end of the room, even out into the building's marbled floored lobby, so I trusted their judgment.
Originally I brought a mic and stand, I thought I'd practice introducing tunes and interacting with the audience, but it became apparent quickly that I was there to provide ambiance, background music, which is somewhat my specialty. In other words, I kept my mouth shut!
I played Thursday evening to a pretty good crowd. I had been struggling with some kind of stomach bug all afternoon and my energy was definitely a bit scattered as well as my playing, but people seemed to enjoy it.
Friday mornings performance was much better, I felt much better. The wonderful servers made sure I had an unending cup of coffee as I played. I tried and tried to empty it with no luck, they're that good!  The food at this place is great, specializing in slow food, with a large selection of vegetarian and vegan meals. I had the Orange Almond French Toast for breakfast on Friday, ohhh yeah!
Overall a great couple of days, Sherrie and I stayed with friends in CO Springs and had a chance to visit and do some shopping. The manager at the cafe told me she had lots of positive feedback on my music and asked me back, I have four new dates lined up, so I feel pretty good about that!