Reflection

i'm totally breaking my "no blogging after 10:00" rule, but i think this is a moment i'll want to remember. tonight i played a gig where, for the first time, i did an actual set. as in, more than 2 songs. AND it was the first time i've ever played with more than one person accompanying me. a pretty big night. my first reaction? i have the best friends. ever! the guys that played with me are amazing and made my music come alive in ways it never would have without them. on top of that, i have fantastic friends who came to watch in a non-air-conditioned venue. and if you've never spent a summer in the south, believe me when i say, it's stinkin hot. i can't begin to describe what it does for my heart to know i have so many people in my life that would come to support me.

as for the performance itself: there were no monitors. it has been an unfortunately long time since i've had the pleasure of singing without monitors, so it was pretty difficult to adjust to. i could hear myself bouncing off the back wall a few milliseconds after the words actually came out of my mouth, so there was this weird latency that caused me to drag the first couple songs...FAIL. but, between songs, i conveyed this to my keyboard player and asked if he could go ahead and drive the tempo for me. and of course he does an excellent job of it from then on. because i have amazing friends like that. unfortunately, it took me until the last couple songs to really start to relax. i finally accepted the fact that i couldn't hear myself, and thus had very little control over my voice past my instincts. so i decided to stop trying to hear and just sing. i still have no idea what it actually sounded like, but i'm sure it probably helped. i can't tell you how many times in the studio my producer has told me to stop trying. so i hope it came off okay. if it didn't....i couldn't hear myself. :) live and learn. it was such a blast!