Saturday is a special day

I love it when I have a good show. Shows are a lot like middle school birthday parties- you get all excited, and then right before you worry that no one will come... as it was, I only started with 20 people in the room. The beauty of performing with my eyes closed on nights like tonight though, was by the end I had about 80 people. Hooray.

There were four or five people there because I had been recommended by their mom, friend, neighbor, donut lady, etc, which is really encouraging. You also get those I-had-never-heard-of-you-before-tonight-and-now-I'm-buying-your-CD people. Anybody there feels good.

It was a good night, I felt like I sang a lot of stuff better than I usually do. It's remarkable that this doesn't get old. Sure the loading equipment in and out of the car, bickering about setlists, arranging rehearsals, and promoting yourself gets old. But the actual performance of the music you spend so much of your life writing, practicing, promoting, teaching others, spending thousands of dollars producing... when it comes to the actual, live performance- that never gets old. And I'm to that point where in an hour and a half of music, really hour forty five, I like every song. I think I made some less than intelligent statements between songs (banter is still a little hit or miss), but playing the music... nothing like it.

We played some new stuff, which I always enjoy. I don't know how much my band guys enjoy being handed a song Tuesday and then have to play it Saturday with very little notice, but I for one like the spontaneity of it. I'm not the kind of artist that writes a song and spends months (or even weeks) hammering it out to perfection in rehearsal. Obviously you want to have a good handle on it, but I make a point of getting new music into my live show as quickly as possible. People are very forgiving of minor performance flaws of something new because it's cool to be among the first to hear a song.

Busy week next week, but I'm not going to even worry about it tonight. Probably not tomorrow either. One day at a time.