On Thursday, April 5, John and I got together at his church, in the basement. We ran through a few tunes then packed up and headed off to The Coach and Lantern. It's a snug little tavern in Ancaster and the audience seem to have taken to us quite nicely. Two guys, two guitars. It's funny how you can build a following if you play well. Anyhow, we walked in and immediately, some folks were yelling out our name. Crazy Chester, that is. One chap came up to John and I overheard him commenting about how much he enjoyed us and he thought it so cool that we had set the bar for other performers in the place. I was kind of flabbergasted by that, but inside, I was feeling quite proud of Crazy Chester.  After fifteen minutes, it was our turn to get up and play our open mike segment. We opened with "Wagon Wheel" by Dylan. Then we did "Hallelujah" By Leonard Cohen. This one I capoed on the 9th fret and fingerpicked. We also did "Willin' By Little Feat We tried a pair of Celtic instrumentals, "Whiskey Before Breakfast" and "Over The Moor". They went well, despite the fact that John and I could not hear each other. There is no monitoring at The Coach. There was lots of applause nonetheless. We finished with a tune we had just worked up two hours before. An acoustic version of ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man". In the middle of the first lead solo, I got applauded. I tried to ignore it because I had more to play. Anyhow I did notice that everybody was singing along and yelling at the tops of their lungs. It brought the house down. The emcee, a splendid young man named Ryan Vivian, got up and goaded the audience to "give it up some more for Crazy Chester!" and he pumped the crowd up more. I took a bow and then held my guitar over my head. I prodded John to do the same thing. So there we were, crowd deafening, guitars held over our heads. What a moment. Ryan gave us a pair of tickets for free beers. So we had our beers and hung about for half an hour or so. During which time, people came up and chatted and quite complimented us both. When we left, I felt like I was walking on air. It's just lovely being on the receiving end of that kind of appreciation and applause. It validates all the effort and long hours. Looking forward to going back. Playing The Folk Club at The Pheasant Plucker on Tuesday. Hope that goes well.

Welcome to my blog. My name is Andrew and I am a guitarist. I perform with a chap named John Harris and we are centered in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We call ourselves Crazy Chester.