Diary Of A Busker Day 2288 Thursday December 21st 2023 The Square, Winchester.
A mild day – 12 degrees, but very windy so I’ve got to have my foot on the end of the gigbag pretty much the whole time. During The Third Man a couple walk by. She says “Makes you want to dance, don’t it?” He says “No.”
A man and his young son of about 5 come up and the son says “Do you know any Queen?” I say I don’t, as “stuff like that is too difficult for me”, which is a polite way of saying “I don’t play it because I don’t like it.”
The father compliments me on my guitar then says “I used to be Pete Townshend’s guitar tech, on the Quadrophenia tour and I had a couple of Les Pauls come in, brand new, delivered straight from the factory which I had to look over and inspect, and that was my first day. And I had to rebuild the guitar he used to smash every night and I was doing this and he came up with Phil Daniels, and I was trying to sort it out and they were standing either side of me taking the piss out of me and I got so annoyed I turned to Townshend and said (he puts his hands over his son’s ears and lowers his voice) “Look, if you can’t say something useful, fuck off!” (hands off ears) and after that, at the end of every show he’d come up and hug me.”
“I bet he’s never had anyone say that to him for awhile.” I said.
“No, probably made him feel normal.”
The other day I had a kid request Jingle Bells, which I had a go at but it was a bit embarrassing so I thought I should spend a few minutes working it out at home, along with reviving my simple Silent Night arrangement. Anyway, I did them both today (in C) and they got a few claps and a couple of donations so it was worth rehearsing them, I mean, Jingle Bells isn’t exactly a Beethoven piano sonata.
Near the end Sara comes up, asks if I like strawberries (yes) then hands over a plastic box of them, saying “You can have them while playing.” Well, I haven’t got time for that so I took them home.
An hour and a half was long enough – the hands were failing with the cold and it was starting to drizzle so I would have had to stop anyway. While packing up, Jerry comes by to say hello. He’s an American, a bit older than me and he comes back every year for Christmas and always sees me and remembers my name. Unfortunately, I have to ask him HIS, which I really must try and remember for next year.