Repeating Night

I sat backstage with an unlighted cigarette pressed between my lips. Lighter in hand, I was just about to strike the flint. Bob stumbled in, guitar in hand, and looked at me, “Looks like it’s going to be a good show out there. I think there are fifty people out there.”

I’ve never once had stage fright. I have always felt completely natural in front of people’s searching eyes. Playing music incites a certain state of calm over me. A feeling that can hardly be described directly. Indirectly, it has in the past been able to make me feel completely well, even in the throws of the flu, clearing my sinuses while I play, only to have them get clogged up again as soon as the magic has faded minutes after the last note is played. It’s almost a religious experience, if I knew what that feels like, I can only assume. I looked back at him, set down the cigarette and lighter and responded, “Let’s get to it then!”

Walking out on stage never feels the same, every room; every person in the room makes it feel slightly different. Move one person from the back of the house to the front and the entire evening could be changed. Whether or not people cheer as you walk up to your guitar on stage, or it’s a sea of silence. I’ve found the best thing to do is to ignore the audience and play the music for oneself.

Can this really be done? Honestly in a word, no, not for a second. We, the musicians feed off of the crowd. And likewise, the audience steals our verve on stage. It’s like two vampires sucking at each other, but more aimed at amplifying each other’s enjoyment of the evening. Not so much taking from each other, but more giving to each other. I honestly feel sorry for people too afraid to get on stage and pass this energy back and forth.

Luckily this stage has the lights turned bright on us. I like to imagine that there are hundreds to thousands of people in the audience here just to enjoy the music I created with my friends. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter much to me. I just wish as many people as possible could enjoy it. I look over to Bob, then to Joe to assure that everyone is ready, and started playing the opening line to our first song. Each note carefully plotted to reach out and get people moving.

The remainder of the show is a blur of random stage communication, highs, lows, missed notes, happy mistakes, and every once in a while a new way of playing learned on the spot. I could describe the experience as being similar to being on a dissociative drug of some sort. You are there totally in control of what is happening on stage, but at the same time you’re not really there, kind of in a higher place watching it from a completely different vantage point. The strangest part is that you will never know what it’s like on the other side of the monitors. I’ve had brilliant shows on stage where everything up there is mixed like a dream and I can feel my own bass notes vibrating through my body, and the vocals edge on the divine, only later to find that the house mix blew and people come up to me telling me they have seen better.

-V-