If I'm in a session in a pub or after-hours at a festival, I'm playing for the fun of playing. That is, I'm playing music with other musicians who simply love playing music. Of one of them drops a recorder in the middle to learn a new tune or song, that's great - no problem. Somebody hooks up a PA and sticks a mic in there - the meter just kicked on. We're now "performing". That means, it just became work - not play. I know I'm pretty hard-nosed about it, but that's the way I see it.

True story: I played a festival in Michigan last year - had a fantastic time there. The band I was playing with was the last act on the last stage going - scheduled that way. Had a great time - scads of people under the tent finishing off the adult beverages that were available and generally relaxing after a very long day (about half the folks there at the end were festival volunteers or workers). We finished our set and tore down our gear and loaded up the van and cars.

'bout the time that we finished, a session started up out in the middle of the festival grounds. We heard this music coming (literally) from the middle of a pitch dark field. Being music types, we grabbed our instruments and headed that way - and found a bunch of folks from other bands playing for the sake of playing. We joined in and all had a great time. One of the festival guys told us that the stage was still lit and we could play there - we all just looked at each other and thanked him - we'd rather play in the dark, playing the tunes we wanted to play, then go back and play tunes on a lighted stage. It was time for US to "play" after having "worked" for 14 hours that day.

Ah well -

Cheers - Pete