Obsidian Potency 3.0
Pilgrim Hearts
posted Friday, 19 June 2009
I'm going to tell the story of our band's first-ever live performance.
In the previous 2 days, we had taken time off work, traveled to the city/state of the show, and practiced for 8 hours each day. It wasn't ideal to be practicing so much right before the gig. But since 3 of the 5 band members lived in faraway states, there wasn't any choice. Plus, we had to add new songs at the last minute to make up for our sudden lack of an opener. By the end of the second day of practice, my left fingers were cramping and I had tendinitis in my left forearm.
But like I said, we had no choice. We had to add to our set, practice our original set, and get all the kinks worked out, and we had 48 hrs to do it.
Sound check was at 7:00 the night of the gig. I'd never gone through a formal sound check before either -- all my prior gigs had been at bars or house parties where the band used its own PA system and had to deal with sound issues ourselves. Not this time.
The venue was a legit music venue. Nationally-known rock acts had graced this stage before, and I felt entirely unworthy to be there. At the same time, here it was: a moment we'd been working towards for at least 5 months...or, from another perspective, the better part of two years.
We had our own dressing room in the basement, with concrete walls, floor and ceiling as well as 5 lounge chairs for us to sit in while we waited for our time. Only there was no opening act to wait for: ours had bailed at the last minute due to a family emergency (and that's why we had to add to our set at the last minute). The doors had opened at 9, our opener should have started at 10. We decided to go up to the stage around 10:15 or so. We huddled together and said a prayer, then jogged up the stairs from the basement and into the venue. Everyone cheered as we hopped up on stage and picked up our instruments.
From that point forward, the night was a bit of a blur. I sang a few songs, but mostly played my instrument and did backing vocals. The set was not smooth; we made plenty of mistakes. But every band makes mistakes; the important thing was that we plowed through them and the large crowd (135 people) ate it up. At one point, a pregnant bartender was jumping up and down with our music. When you get the bartenders at a live music venue moving, you must be doing something right.
Let me tell you: the feeling of hearing fans of your bands cheer as they recognize the intro to one of your songs, or hearing them sing the lyrics perfectly along with you, is an indescribable high. I've been on the opposite side of the equation plenty of times before, as an enthusiastic audience member singing as one of my favorite bands played. But being on the stage side of things was overwhelming in a good way. Awe-inspiring, even. Like I said, I can't really put it into words.
We played for over two hours, not including the 20-25-minute break in the middle. The second set was definitely more fun than the first - we threw the crowd some curveballs they weren't expecting, and they loved it. I sang a song by myself, dedicated it to my brother, and had a tough time getting all the way through it without breaking down. After I was done, I couldn't hold it in anymore. He would have been there if he was alive. Some in the crowd noticed. But there was no time to let myself go too much - we had more songs to play. I recovered quickly enough.
You know how athletes dedicated their performances to someone special before or after they perform? Or when a band does it? This was it for us. This was our moment. All of us had performed before, but never under these circumstances, playing legit original mainstream music in front of a large crowd that contained people who were hearing us for the first time. This was our first statement to the world. And we felt it.
When we finished, the crowd demanded that we do one more song. Fortunately, my bandmates had planned for that contingency and had left a crowd-pleaser for the very end. Again, they loved it. But this time, when we were done, we were really done. We were exhausted. It went well enough that we confirmed playing another show in Chicago, and probably one in DC as well. We taped the gig with multiple cameras and made an audio recording as well; we plan to release some of the footage as videos.
Despite all the highs and lows of the past 18 months, all the gains and all the losses, I wouldn't trade any of it if it meant that I had to give up the experience of playing that show. Well, except my brother -- I wish he was still here, but I'm sure he was listening and I'm sure he was proud.
In the previous 2 days, we had taken time off work, traveled to the city/state of the show, and practiced for 8 hours each day. It wasn't ideal to be practicing so much right before the gig. But since 3 of the 5 band members lived in faraway states, there wasn't any choice. Plus, we had to add new songs at the last minute to make up for our sudden lack of an opener. By the end of the second day of practice, my left fingers were cramping and I had tendinitis in my left forearm.
But like I said, we had no choice. We had to add to our set, practice our original set, and get all the kinks worked out, and we had 48 hrs to do it.
Sound check was at 7:00 the night of the gig. I'd never gone through a formal sound check before either -- all my prior gigs had been at bars or house parties where the band used its own PA system and had to deal with sound issues ourselves. Not this time.
The venue was a legit music venue. Nationally-known rock acts had graced this stage before, and I felt entirely unworthy to be there. At the same time, here it was: a moment we'd been working towards for at least 5 months...or, from another perspective, the better part of two years.
We had our own dressing room in the basement, with concrete walls, floor and ceiling as well as 5 lounge chairs for us to sit in while we waited for our time. Only there was no opening act to wait for: ours had bailed at the last minute due to a family emergency (and that's why we had to add to our set at the last minute). The doors had opened at 9, our opener should have started at 10. We decided to go up to the stage around 10:15 or so. We huddled together and said a prayer, then jogged up the stairs from the basement and into the venue. Everyone cheered as we hopped up on stage and picked up our instruments.
From that point forward, the night was a bit of a blur. I sang a few songs, but mostly played my instrument and did backing vocals. The set was not smooth; we made plenty of mistakes. But every band makes mistakes; the important thing was that we plowed through them and the large crowd (135 people) ate it up. At one point, a pregnant bartender was jumping up and down with our music. When you get the bartenders at a live music venue moving, you must be doing something right.
Let me tell you: the feeling of hearing fans of your bands cheer as they recognize the intro to one of your songs, or hearing them sing the lyrics perfectly along with you, is an indescribable high. I've been on the opposite side of the equation plenty of times before, as an enthusiastic audience member singing as one of my favorite bands played. But being on the stage side of things was overwhelming in a good way. Awe-inspiring, even. Like I said, I can't really put it into words.
We played for over two hours, not including the 20-25-minute break in the middle. The second set was definitely more fun than the first - we threw the crowd some curveballs they weren't expecting, and they loved it. I sang a song by myself, dedicated it to my brother, and had a tough time getting all the way through it without breaking down. After I was done, I couldn't hold it in anymore. He would have been there if he was alive. Some in the crowd noticed. But there was no time to let myself go too much - we had more songs to play. I recovered quickly enough.
You know how athletes dedicated their performances to someone special before or after they perform? Or when a band does it? This was it for us. This was our moment. All of us had performed before, but never under these circumstances, playing legit original mainstream music in front of a large crowd that contained people who were hearing us for the first time. This was our first statement to the world. And we felt it.
When we finished, the crowd demanded that we do one more song. Fortunately, my bandmates had planned for that contingency and had left a crowd-pleaser for the very end. Again, they loved it. But this time, when we were done, we were really done. We were exhausted. It went well enough that we confirmed playing another show in Chicago, and probably one in DC as well. We taped the gig with multiple cameras and made an audio recording as well; we plan to release some of the footage as videos.
Despite all the highs and lows of the past 18 months, all the gains and all the losses, I wouldn't trade any of it if it meant that I had to give up the experience of playing that show. Well, except my brother -- I wish he was still here, but I'm sure he was listening and I'm sure he was proud.
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