Busking is not something I’ve ever done before. (The piano is not the most portable instrument, although some street-friendly keyboards are now available.) The idea has appealed to me for a while, in that you’d know whether you are playing something people actually want to hear, or if you need to go back to the score and start again.
I remember seeing video of an accomplished violinist playing in a subway in the US. He was playing huge concert halls at the time, for huge ticket prices. He played for ages in the subway and got just a few bucks. Only one person stayed and watched—because she knew who he was…
Why am I telling you this?
Because Pascal Destal and I were booked to do our Boby Lapointe show at Chez Albert in Bergerac a couple of weeks ago. One option was to play in the function room downstairs and charge entry. Another was to play in the street and pass around the “chapeau”. (This is an established thing in France and you can do quite well with it.) We chose to play in the street and performed the set we’ve been playing over the summer. Hard core.
It went down well (we did a lot better than that violinist), everyone had fun, and I even managed to remember to press record on the camera, so should be able to put a video together over the winter.
