In a week’s time, my brother and I will be off to Arena Joondalup for our first ever live performance.
Well, not the arena per se. The sports bar, to be precise, which is only a 200-seater venue. Oh… hang on, 200 people? Erm, that’s quite a bit more than a few. In fact, that’s more than the total number of people we’ve played to so far… by 200.
Eeeeeeeek.
Yesterday we attended a briefing with the city’s youth organizer Alise. I’ll be honest, I do feel a tiny bit outside of the age range to be participating in a youth event – the contest is aimed at the 12-18 range and I am two years senior (but my younger brother fits in – just about, so that’s how we’re eligible), but I have to remind myself that I won’t be mixing with people a great deal younger than those I mixed with in Sixth Form. A good deal of these people are probably interested in the same things I am, so I probably shouldn’t be concerned.
The contest being a youth event, its coordinator(s) and stage manager(s) will be doing everything in their power to make the event run smoothly – I’m reliant that they’ll make the process short and simple even for an idiot like me, who really has no experience at all with the “gear” side of music performance. Everything seems to be fairly relaxed (even the technical briefing was) so it’s pointless stressing out too much about it.
It’s been a bit of an upward climb accustoming to performing my songs live, though – there’s been many a moment where I’ve been completely ashamed of how badly I still seem to be capable of performing at times. I realize that the pain of dealing with your inabilities in a field you’re not completely comfortable with is an integral part of doing something new and outside your comfort bubble, but as a perfectionist, anything other than perfection – especially in the medium of music and singing – irks me greatly.
Despite all this, I think we’ve finally reached a state where we’re not completely awful, so that’s a step forward, probably. We’ll be squaring off against three other acts called, Stone Cold, Crank and Silent Shock, all of whom I think are more fitting of the descriptor “rock band” – we’re simply a two-piece electronic rock act.
Damn it, I’m being self-deprecating again. I can’t help it, I’m English.
Here’s a Facebook photo gallery of our recent rehearsals.
Now we’ve got to encourage people to come along and support us. Might be tricky, as we… don’t know that many people in the 12-18 age range who might be interested. Hmm.
Anyway, as daunting as it is, it’s also incredibly exciting. This could be our big breakthrough for 2012. I’ve been huddled asleep in my box for too long – it’s time to take some control.
(That last sentence is incredibly clever.)