Reading The Crowd!

We were playing at a bar near a pretty nice resort lake about an hour and a half from the city. It was a Friday night. It also happened to be the Owner and her husband's anniversary. Well, they were celebrating with a few friends at the tables close to the stage. In fact, they were some of the only ones in the area. This place is never crowded. At least not after dinner time. So the owner and her gang were the largest group of people in the band area.
At some point in the night, Warno says to them, "Holler out your requests and we'll do our best to not butcher them". SO they holler them out. 1st set, we played a few of them. Even played an old Ray Price song that wed had never played before.
After the first set we had our dinner. While eating Warno looked at us and said, "We need to keep this group happy, they've been dancing more than anyone else". Once we got back on stage we played a couple of songs to pretty much no response. All the while two people in the crowd were yelling out "play another song by Merle (Haggard)!" and "Play Strokin!". Both of which we could do. He just stood there looking through his book of lyrics and practically ignoring them. After another song, he actually looked at me and said, "I just can't read this crowd". HA! I just replied with, "well we could start by playing another Merle song and then maybe Strokin'" His reply was the usual mumble about how we can't let them take charge of what we are doing. JHC! They aren't trying to take charge, they just want to hear a couple of songs. Songs that we know how to play for that matter.
OH well, luckily the bar manager let us quit for the night after those people left. We had to play out that way again two night later. That gig wasn't so bad. Warno was pretty rude to the banquet manager. The usual thinking he is one of the guests and not the hired help as we really are.
Well, that's about all I have to say about that one.
till later,
Mario