There is the famous story (was it GBS) about the man who asks a beautiful well-bred lady if she would sleep with him for a huge sum of money. He says that he will buy her any outfit that she wants, will take her out for a wonderful evening, dine her in any restaurant of her choice, and then they will go to best hotel suite available for the night. After thinking about for a fairly short time, she assents. "What would you offer me for ten pounds" he then asks. "What do you take me for !" she replies indignantly. "That has already been established madam", he tells her, "Now we are merely haggling over the price !".

I think we all have our prices for doing "Wallpaper Music or Musak" gigs as I call them. Some performers (especially on the more pop music side) do very little else. I have even spoken to some, who prefer to have minimal contact with their audiences - mind you I've felt like that about the odd audience myself !.

You can either just carry on singing your standard repertoire and waiting for the end of the gig and the MONEY, or you can actually try to get the audience involved by singing something different, perhaps by doing a number without the PA (if you're using one), and actually walking around and taking the song to them. For example (as some of you may recall), at the end of "I live in Trafalgar Square" I will usually be standing on a table or chair with an empty bottle to my eye doing an impression of Nelson !

For me, the the fun is to GET an audience to listen to what you're singing. While I don't go quite as far as Derek (Mr) Smith or even Doug Hudson, I still think that many audiences (outside of folk clubs) need "entertaining" not merely "performing to". It's surprising how much they'll listen to the serious songs if you wake them up now and again !