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Reality is short-lived, as the show presses close things dissolve into a smokey bubble around me and the boys. Obviously, we are still to early in our tenure to handle or remotely tackle the nerves of the pressure to entertain and the possibility of failure without an enduced substance. Its a strange concept but it rings true, usually people will take drugs to lose themselves and control to a degree, but in this particular situation the roles are reversed. I use to maintain control and ensure I am myself on stage. Otherwise, I would become a vegetable or a freak, as the nerves blow a pre-existing self-consciousness into complete failure. An altered state allows me to focus solely on what I have to do, it eliminates the concern for one of the two major factors in every performance, the crowd. Without that barrowing down on my shoulders, I can give them everything my ability posseses and become that kid practicing in my room alone on a friday night.
The call is made, we're on. There's nothing romantic or electric about our entrance, if the venue wasn't so small it might have proved a challenge in finding the stage (that scene in Spinal Tap hits my mind), the crowd expectation and commotion was that null. Than again, that's the scene I've always known as the most powerful intro from all the top performances I've been to. It can most accurately be portrayed in words through a description I once read of a Bob Dylan emergence "without a word or announcement a small figure swathed in a woolen muffler climbed the stairs behind the stage and walked to the microphone. The crowd let out a shriek of recognitionas Bob Dylan strummed a few chords on his electric guitar and adjusted his harmonica brace". Even still, that doesn't do it justice, you've got to be there, there is no substitution for the experience. Of course, we weren't hit with such an eruption when the sparse crowd noticed the presence of our figures moving to set positions, but we did have their attention and increasing silence. Upon reaching for the strap on my Gibson my concentration fell entirely on my purpose of being there, the music. There is no means of beginning to describe the ecstacy we were feeling as the show unfolded, unveiling more and more evidence that there was no falsification within our soundcheck, it was a perfect depiction of the direction for the nights show. As we proudly concluded and clamored off the stage, a sickening pain hit the root of my stomach, as it all came back I realized the crowd was subdued and less than enthused with all we had thrown in their direction the entire show. This was presently interrupted as we were approached and thrown countless compliments by a few local label A&R reps fixated on what they had witnessed. There mouths were easy to read, they were watering to hear more and to hear us recording in their studio. But, in the middle of an already finished conversation, my thoughts drifted back to reading into the crowds reaction, they didn't buy into it and it seemed we had moved not a one of them. Just then Jim Mear from 'so and so records' threw out the word 'euphoric', it hit like a rock crashing against my temple, with each syllable he dished out I was struck with another reflection of the negative response received from those that mattered. This was becoming an all too familiar scene. Understandably, we had the right people in check career wise, but again, we had expectations in ourselves and they didn't involve money. It was so early in, we had been a band for just over two years and yet we were already having to question whether we would be undeservingly getting to that next stage, what did this mean, did people not get us right yet or were we sellouts? Hope began to spring up that the critics recognized our ability for longevity, that it was only a matter of time before people began giving us attention and heard our music for what it truly is. Besides, so many of my personal favourites took time to grow on me.