Last Saturday, I played David Dewese‘s CD Release show at E Street Cafe in Encinitas. David and I played an open mic there a while ago and David’s played a show there since so we knew a bit of what to expect. There’s no house PA. So we brought our amps.

It was, I believe, the loudest acoustic show I’ve ever played. We played guitars through David’s amp and put the vocals through mine. David at one point had the master volume on the vocals at 10. I’ve never turned my amp up that loudly.

David brought a ton of friends. I brought the largest crowd I probably ever have. There was tons of crowd noise, just chatter. It may have been that the acoustics of the room made it sound louder onstage but it was pretty overwhelming.

I opened with a couple of chugging songs and then decided to switch it up and play a softer song (Frankly Mr Turner) to try that old trick of playing soft to get the audience to quiet down and listen. But that just made them louder.

I know part of it had to do with the amps. On the floor of the stage, they were just about pointed right at the face of anyone at a table nearby. So those people were talking louder just to hear themselves over the stage volume. It was incredible. I just felt deafened onstage between the loud amps at my feet and the noise in front of me. I haven’t felt that way since probably playing with the Carters at the Springwater. I had a noise hangover after I was done.

Our friends from Nashville, Rich and Mindy Painter, now live out in LA and they played the show as well. They opened and were just overtaken by the crowd noise. They said they hadn’t played a show in a while but when I could hear them, it was the same as seeing them years ago in Nashville — melodic and sweet. David was in top form as well with a bunch of stories in between his tunes that you could actually hear.

It was a great night and DD and I are playing again soon: February 4th at the LAB in Costa Mesa and March 18th at Cabrillo Playhouse in San Clemente.