An Evening with G. Love and Special Sauce

Wednesday night G. Love and Special Sauce had a show in Dresden. And this was one of the strangest shows I've been to. Mainly because there was nobody there. The evening started when my friend Kat and I showed up about 30 minutes before the announced start time - and we were the ONLY ones in the whole place. So we got a coupla beers and went outside across the street to sit in the grass in the sun. And we're sitting there and this tall lanky guy comes strolling down the neighborhood street with a coke and give us a weird look. And 10 seconds later were like, wait, that was "G. Love." weird.

So eventually we went back into the club, had a few more beers, and very slowly people started coming in. About an hour later we're thinking maybe an opening act will come on soon, but the place is still empty with some people milling around talking and drinking. And then G. Love and Special Sauce walk onto the stage. And there isn't a single person at the stage in the audience. And like 5 people start clapping. And the band has this look like "aww hell, this is gonna be a long night, what the hell." And then the 50 or so people throughout the club gather together near the stage and they just open with "Garbage Man". But it's all so surreal, cause I've never been to a G. Love show, but in my mind they are a pretty big act, I was expecting the place to be decently packed.
So they play about 4 songs, people are getting into it, but it's still eerie. I leaned over to say something to Kat between songs and actually whispered to her for fear that G. Love himself might hear me. It was that quiet. And after these songs he's like, "Well, seems like we got a little intimate show here tonight, so....uh, we're taking requests.....what do you guys wanna hear?"
And like 6 people say songs.
And he leans over to me and says, "wait, what did you say?"
"Cold Beverage"
(to band) "Cold Beverage. Huh, is it time for that yet? Ahh, well, fuck it. Cold Beverage."
And they play it. And another song, then back to requests. "Ok, now what?" And guy kinda sheepishly walks up to the stage and barely audibly says "Well, i was wondering if you could play a song my girlfriend wants to hear."
"OK, what."
"Baby Got Sauce."
And then the play it. Then they play a coupla of new tunes, and take a break. and everybody gets a beer. Then they come back on and he's asking for requests again. Kat requested one, then I requested another.
But the thing about it is they actually still put on a really good show. Like they were still jammin out and gettin into it. At the last song G. Love walked up and shook hands with the 5 of us actually requesting songs, and they left the stage, and I assumed there was no chance they'd play an encore. I mean, if there was ever a situation where a band wasn't going to have an encore, THIS was it. But when the left the stage, every single person of the 50-60 were clapping and hollering. And they came back out and played more songs, took a couple more requests, and really got to jammin some blues stuff. I guess they figured, "hey, maybe only 5-10 people here knew our songs coming in, but damn, they all really like it and enjoyed it."
And the band came out afterwards and chatted with those still there (see pic)
SO it was cool in the end. Maybe I shoulda tried to get them to come out for a beer in Neustadt. But there was NO WAY I was gonna be that guy.


Correction: They opened with "Stepping Stones". Thanks Kat. >:P