That's Impossible

That's Impossible is a once a month magical show at Egan's Ballard Jam House.
I went the other night to see a magician named Brian Cook perform.
I had been really looking forward to watching Brian's magic.
Brian has been performing magic for a lot of years. I met him a long time ago when I got into magic. He was a frequent member of the Alki Magic studio.
Brian taught me a lot about magic.
He has a nice stage presence, very vocal and is aware of his audience, he takes the time to socialize with them.
I was disappointed in his selection of effects to perform however.
Egan's is a small venue, tightly packed. A small stage with piano on it makes it even smaller.
Brian performed a very nice Card effect with a spectator. They both signed different cards, then the card warped inside out inside another card and Brian magically restored the card, but now both signatures were on one card, they had become one. He performed this with Jumbo cards so it was "seeable" by everyone.
He did a very nice cut and restored rope routine as well.
His coin routine, using silver half dollars didn't play too well. He did a sort of coins across matrix with four half dollars and a playing card along with the coin purse. While Brian's mastery of the effect is excellent, it was difficult to see form the back of the room and therefore, lent itself to confusion. In fact I heard a lay person tell me outside that it was confusing. Part of the problem in this venue is that the wait staff is constantly moving around bringing drinks and food to tables as well as taking orders etc. Sometimes they block the spectators field of vision. If you miss something in someones performance, perhaps because you look down to get a bite to eat, or the waitress happens to be delivering something to someone and now you cannot see, you have lost the thread of the magical effect, and it is very rare to get it back.
Brian also performed a yo-yo effect, and while it was fun and upbeat, it wasn't magic.
Isaac Louie did a lecture recently and said that as a magician, you don't always have to be doing a magic trick. I am wondering if this was what Brian was doing?
I learn as I go..
don't we all!? :)