I was in Portland a couple weeks ago playing at one of my favorite dueling piano bars, The Barrel Room. While down there I scheduled another gig on Sunday night at the Rock Bottom in downtown Portland. I cannot explain in words how much fun I had performing a solo piano bar show at this venue! I drove down from Seattle on Friday afternoon, grand piano strapped to the roof of my Suburban. All weekend long I drove around getting looks and comments about the piano on top of my car, it was quite entertaining.

The Rock Bottom crowd was amazing for a Sunday night, the place was totally packed! A majority of the crowd stuck around for almost the entire show and I ended up playing an extra hour and a half just because we were having so much fun. From the start, the crowd was getting involved, singing along and requesting songs. I started getting so many song requests it got a little challenging to manage all of them in any kind of order, but I think I played about 90% of the songs that got put down on the piano.

The way I learn songs and expand my song list is by taking requets at shows and learning the ones that get requested the most often. I keep all the requst slips each night and focus my efforts on songs get the most bang for the buck. Lately, I've been getting a LOT of request for Pearl Jam.......it's embarassing that I'm a musician living in Seattle and I don't know any Pearl Jam, yet I can play 4 songs by Katy Perry! WTF?!? It's finally time I fix that little problem. I started last night and learned 'Better Man' by Pearl Jam and have a list of 5 more Pearl Jam songs to learn over the next few weeks. Other songs I'll be adding from that night include: 'Army' - Ben Folds, 'Unforgiven' - Metallica, 'Nothing Else Matters' - Metallica, 'ET' - Katy Perry (I know, another Katy Perry song : ).

I've got an upcoming show at the Bellevue Rock Bottom and I'm hoping to get another Portland Rock Bottom show scheduled for July when I make another trip down to play at the Barrel Room Dueling Piano Show! Check my calendar for upcoming dates and come hang out and have a good time!