Blinker Tavern in Kent

Posted Nov 27th, 2012

Just a quick note here to tell you that I had my first evening playing at the Blinker Tavern in Kent, on Saturday the 24th of November. Once again I learned the valuable old adage about “never judging a book by it’s cover”.  When you pull up to the Blinker you might have several thoughts going through your head. Mine were that it was a smaller, no-frills type of tavern where you would go to have a quick beer ask directions and then move on. I was most pleasantly surprised and dead wrong. First off, the owner, Joe and his staff are the nicest group of people you would ever want to meet. The exterior of the place is a bit stark and unassuming. The inside was actually pretty nice. It was immaculately clean with new carpet and furniture throughout. It was well lit and equipped with some nice modern looking big screens for sportsmen to watch their games. An awesome sound system and even a nice new dance floor. It also had a couple of pool tables and a deck out back for those of you who are still smokers. When I got there to set up there was some Lynnard Skynnard playing on the jukebox and most other music after that was of the same type of 70’s Rock and Roll/modern country. I wasn’t sure how they were going to take some of the stuff I did, which is usually of the tamer variety. I was not sure if I had enough country music to satisfy this crowd. I just decided that I would just play what I normally do and if they were ready for that type of music then great, if not I would probably not get asked to return. The first song I did I got a standing ovation (Horse with No Name) and from then on it was a totally great audience. All night long it seemed like they really enjoyed about every song I did. I couldn’t lose with this crowd. I was getting a million requests and sorry to say I couldn’t come through on all of those but suffice to say I was hitting about 60%, which is good for me. At any rate, the evening turned out to be a really fun time and I am back again this Saturday night on December 1st. I am really looking forward to it!

Never judge a book by it’s cover. Sounds clich’e but oh so true.