Sometimes you can shut an audience up just by playing quietly.

Here's me at an open mic in Devon:

Axminster Open Mic

The previous song I'd done included some vigorous strumming and vocals. It's interesting to hear the audience "recalibrate" themselves during this quiet instrumental. The first 40 seconds they're very noisy, but by 50 seconds they're getting quiet, and from about halfway through you can hear a pin drop.

I don't think it was my fascinating playing...it's a fairly simple tune, not played with any unusual technical skill, but I think they just shut up when they realised it was a quiet one!