Yeah, Sandy,

The Old Gate was more colorful. Ribback tried to go upscale and it took a little out of the atmosphere. It sure was an easier place to play though. Do you remember the cavernous stage area outside the dressingroom? It was like Roman catacombs. You could see spiderwebs on the walls and it was cold as hell (wrong metaphor) in the winter. Originally the stage area was at the end of the long hall which was a long haul from the back rows. It didn't help when the alcohol level reached high on the noise meter. Try to do a Child Ballad when the boys in the back are whooping it up. Gibson got away with it but he knew how to handle the saloon crowd. Bob usta' call himself a "saloon singer". He was a helluva lot better than most in that genre though and I thought he was more than just that. I tell you what, a "folk music nightclub" is an oxymoron and if you don't beleive that you should have seen some of the moronic oxen that were in the crowd. But a lot of the people were there because they loved the music. They made the difference.

So later they moved the stage area to the middle of the oblong hall which worked a lot better. Sight lines were better and the back rows weren't so rowdy. Being the house musician was better education than I could have got in any music school.

Frank