Tonight’s the night, march 13th at 7pm, the Show at Gather Wine Bar (122 East Branch Street, Arroyo Grande).  People will remember this event, for years to come.  The true extent of it’s power and influence won’t even be fully realized for decades.  Generations from now, people will speak of it in hushed, reverent tones.

When your grandchildren sit upon your knee in living quadrant of your Cloud Palace of the Future ™ and they ask you, wide eyes filled with wonderment, “Where were you, the night that Loren Radis played his show at Gather?”.  Will you smile and regale them once more with the story of how you were there, you saw it happen, and you were never the same afterwards?  Or will you turn your head in shame, and distract them with something shiny, so as not to reveal the truth, that you didn’t go?

The choice is yours.

-loren

I’ve been pretty busy with life, work, family and NBA Playoff basketball, so I’m behind in my posts. I have some coming though. Hayden’s B-Day party, a Daniel Whittington show, and fun with apache redirects, all to come.

At times, Jon barely needed an amp, his powerful voice more than enough to fill the room. At other times his bass vocals rumbled the table that my Peachy Canyon Zin sat on. If you get a chance, definitely check out Jon Ward, he often plays in North County, which is why it’s my first time listening to my x-coworker. It’s been my loss for missing him until now.

As for my Zin, it was served a tad cold, but quickly came to temp. A very smooth Zin, but with hints of cherry and pepper, but overall wasn’t too complex. My time at Gather was much nicer than opening night, but that should be expected given the crowded nature of opening night. It started as a small crowd of only 8-10, but grew to about 25. Gather luckily has plenty of seating which made my stay extremely enjoyable. I should also mention the acoustics were much better with the smaller crowd. I had no trouble hearing Jon’s lyrics and guitar. It’s a great location sitting in the village. I also had a chance to checkout their recently re-done outside deck. I think it’ll be a great location for some small shows during the beautiful Central Coast summer nights. If you like wine or local brews you should check it out.

Shane Plays with no hands

Shane plays a mix of classics and self written music. Many of the tunes he jazzes up with a flamenco style strum, utilizing lots of body hits to the guitar body, filling his music with more than a solo player is normally capable. He has a great voice to compliment his playing style, I just wish I got to hear more of it.

Unfortunately, it was a Grand Opening, so it was rather noisy and the acoustics of Gather didn’t lend well to amplify much other than the vocal buzz of all the patrons.

Speaking of Gather, it was the Grand Opening and it was a packed house. When I showed up at 8p, I was almost not allowed in due to the number of people currently occupying the building. The decor was nice and felt homey. Kari and crew did a very nice job setting it up. I’ll have to go again when it isn’t quite so busy so I can say more about the wine.

You can listen to a couple of their songs on their myspace page… If I can figure out how to embed the audio, I will. One of my favs is San Francisco.