Blue Chicago

     Everyone searches for authenticity and has their own idea of what that is.  Blue Chicago helped me to see many of the different views of what that could be.  For some, the plays most see as "touristy" are for them authentic, for others it is the places that are "off the beaten path."  I tend to fall into the latter category more often than not.  Most of this comes from my own personal background with music.  I love to listen and compose music.
     I am a highly relational person and so being able to connect with the audience/band members and experience flow is important.  As a child, my family and I took several trips to Branson, MO and went to several shows down there.  It wasn't until reading Blue Chicago that I started thinking about all the people involved in the shows we saw.  I realized that they may feel what many musicians felt in the reading, constant repetition.  It gets old.  Having to perform the same show night after night.  I've started wondering how they cope with it.  Do they find ways to add new concepts without changing the show drastically?  Or do they put on a show, and complain about it later to their friends?
     I know that for me, I would have to try and add new things to a performance otherwise it would start to feel stagnant to me.  Although, you change things too much, you run the risk of people not liking it.  Our culture seems to be about giving people what they want, even if it's not necessarily what we want to give them.  I remember reading how a band would play one song and immediately they would be heckled to play another song as it is one the "standards" of that particular genre, in this case the blues.  Certain songs have defined what we consider blues to be and it is hard for most people when someone tries to bend the rules a little bit.