I’ve been to the Kambar twice in the past fortnight, for Octaine and The Calling, and twice I’ve been amazed by how a place full of people I don’t know can feel so…cozy.
At the start of Octaine, I remember being the only one listening to karohemd‘s set of Americana. And even though the place was empty, and the lights were wrong, and the music wasn’t what I’d expected, still -it worked.
That might have been just the good music, and my tipsiness, and the appropriateness and pleasantness of the Kambar feeling like a barn. But what really made the evening was the way that Ozzy came over and started a conversation with the newcomer. As did the couple who’d been sitting at the back of the room through his set. As did half a dozen people at the Calling, people I didn’t know, or in one case somebody I didn’t know I knew until an hour or two later.
And the conversations were interesting, or at least ten times more interesting than the kind of conversation you expect to have with strangers in a club. Maybe that’s just because the bar is – thank God – quiet enough to have a conversation without miming.
The icing on the cake is that everyone there seems to be a friend of a friend. karohemd knows nina321, deborah_c knows daemongirl, Louise and Marcus know different generations of the Camsaw crowd. Better still, they all seem to know two thirds of the other people there, and want to get to know the rest, and introduce them to their friends.
Calling people, you’re all wonderful – see you in January!