I have another, kind of related question: The other night, I was playing at a cafe/bar/restaurant...relaxed atmosphere where you can order dinner or have a glass of wine, that kind of place. It was very lightly populated, and sitting right in front of me was a table of very loud people who were paying no attention to me whatsoever. Now, the attention thing is fine - I don't begrudge anyone the option to ignore me. What kept throwing me off was the extra noise. If I played a ballad or something similar, I was off my game, and if I tried something uptempo and louder, I felt like I was competing with them in volume; they actually seemed to get louder if I did.

I know this is a common situation, yet it never fails to mess up my concentration, even on things I should be able to play in my sleep. How do the rest of you deal with this kind of thing in your chosen venues?