Chapter 21: Playing for a Small Audience

Posted by admin on June 23rd, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This past thursday we ventured back into Central Pennsylvania for a 2-set show at a great venue that we had played at once before called the “Stage on Herr.”

Having only been to the area once before, we don’t have the biggest following out there just yet, and given the fact that there was the big Harrisburg annual block party festival across the river, we played to a very small audience.

It costs money to travel to venues way outside the city.  Every time we do it we have to ask ourselves, is this worth the investment?  Will this help us grow and build our fanbase?

When we first took the stage and saw the small amount of people in the audience, though I was excited (I’m always excited to play shows) the business part of me questioned whether it was worth our money to travel all this way. The venue and the people who run it are spectacular but were we going to be able to walk away feeling like we had made enough of an impact to come back?

Every show is an amazing learning experience, and this particular show provided me with the learning experience that there is no audience too small to fully “bring it.”  Our “Stage on Herr” show was a huge success for us not only because we had a good time and the music was solid (for the most part but more so because we brought it completely, and the 20 or so people in the audience loved us, put their name down on the email list, asked for autographs and told us they would bring friends the next time we came.

I asked a couple of the people in the audience whether they thought that we should come back or not, and how they felt the rest of the audience liked the show.  One guy even said to me “don’t be discouraged because of the lack of turnout tonight.  There is a huge anual block party going on tonight and most of the town is over there.  You guys were truly spectacular and I think that people in Harrisburg would love you.  You should definitely come back.” Another fan offered us their home for us to all stay in the next time we came back.

The sound guy also said he wanted to open for us the next time we came around with his local band.

I left feeling proud of us for bringing our best no matter what.  The Stage on Herr was so hospitable the last time we came there in April and we were very excited to come back last week.  Same goes for the next time we come back as well.  Thanks Harrisburg for being so great.  We’ll see you soon.

Zach

Chapter 20: My interview last night

Posted by admin on May 11th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

I had a great interview last night with a guy who runs a blog talk radio show called “Music on the Couch.”  Unlike a lot of interviews that I’ve been on, this one was a little more casual, and Vinny, the host, asked me some very interesting questions which got me thinking about some very interesting things.  The one question that he asked me that really stood out was about narcissism.  He had read an old post from this blog where I was talking about how I needed to give up my ego in order to give a good performance.  His questions was something like “don’t you need an ego and a sense of ‘me’ ‘me’ ‘me’ in order to get up onstage in the first place?”

It was a great question because I think it’s something that every artist needs to ask themselves.  At some point in every artists life, I actually remember the exact moment in mine, we had to have made a decision that went something like “I could do that.“  In other words, we looked at our idols, whoever they were and said to ourselves that we too, could be like them.  This is a statement that takes a tremendous amount of courage, or “me”-ness to it.

What I said last night was that that ego can only get us so far, or at least in my experience, has only gotten me so far.  It has helped me practice, use my will to get myself to a professional level and helped establish my sense of self as an artist that is destined for success and continued success.  However, as soon as I step onstage, that ego becomes a problem because once onstage, it’s no longer about me anymore.  It’s about something bigger than me.  Its about both the audience, and then something even greater than the audience. Some call it God, but whatever it is, it’s bigger than my tiny ego.  I want to disappear onstage and allow a greater creative force to live through me and I want to connect that greater force with the audience.  I want to be a vessel, a channel for something greater to move both me and the audience together in celebration.  This is the death of narcissism that I’m talking about.  In my experience, this can only happen in a humble place.