Nov 24 2007
Opening for Sara
Well, it’s thanksgiving and I’m thankful, among many other blessings, for the opportunity to open for Sara Hickman last weekend.My first real solo gig turned out to be pretty fun, not too stressful, and eye opening in some ways.
Adrian squinting with Sara
A couple things made me nervous in the weeks prior to the show. One was the $15 cover. I felt like for that kind of money, the audience would be expecting a lot. One of my friends told me to think of it as $3 for you, $12 for Sara, and that helped! (Also, ¼ of the cover charge went to HAMM, a homeless charity.) The other thing that worried me was my voice, which has been hurting. I practiced at most 30 minutes a day and I even decided to cut down on talking to save my voice, because I was afraid of it breaking down in the middle of my show.
But at the actual event I wasn’t really nervous. John and Sara seemed confident in me which helped. Also there were fewer people than I expected, maybe about 35, including about 7 friends who drove down from Austin. The show went well, people told me they enjoyed my set. I even got them chuckling a couple times between songs. The homemade cookies they serve there at the Walden are really awesome!
I really appreciate the effort my friends from Austin and San Antonio made to come out.
I wonder why I’m not more nervous performing, since when I was younger I had terrible stage fright, even when standing up to ask a question in front of people. I once taught a computer class to a crowd of about 300, and to calm myself down I tried drinking a beer, at 8 am! I was still nervous.
I guess I feel I have more to offer now, because of all the time I spent writing and preparing. I try to let the songs speak for themselves and get out of the way. I also learned from Freebo, a great bass player who played with Bonnie Raitt, to stay in the present, don’t think about what’s about to happen or the mistake you just made. And remember that you and the audience are all in it together. And he said you’ll only be 80% as good as you are in practice. I played a lot of open mics to be ready.
Performing is like juggling. Playing the guitar, remembering the words, and singing, those are the basics and hard enough. Whenever you have that under control, you can put a little thought into remembering the little singing tricks that make things sound better or more understandable, moving at the right moments, and keeping eye contact. I’ve gotten much better at least at eye contact. When juggling 3 balls gets easy, try 4, or 5. But when you drop them, it’s all at once, not just the last one!
What was eye opening about the show was that Sara is well known in the folk/acoustic circuit and yet the turnout was fairly small. She made some money, but if you consider all the benefits she does, and that she can’t perform 5 days a week, it’s tough to make a decent living. It was also eye opening to watch her work her magic on the crowd, wake them up and get them into it. I love her commitment to the causes she works into her music and shows, and I hope to do likewise. I wish I could be as infectious a spirit as she is, but that’s just not me.
I’m learning a great new song by Kathy Hart, someone I met at a songwriting retreat last summer. Hope to have it ready for the show on Dec. 1. Hope to see you there!
Adrian