On Performing

Image by euripedies via FlickrI realized, as most people do after a chapter has turned in their lives, that I miss being on stage. I miss sharing my music with whoever happened to be ear- shot. I miss hearing applaud and satisfaction from fans, and I even miss the smart-alek remarks by arrogant nobodies.
And to think I used to hate it.
My band always had to pep talk me into my performance. They would promise me the three things every man strives for: money, glory, and girls. But I’d still groan and moan as they dragged me on stage.
I’d like to say I didn’t want to perform because I wanted my music to stay idiosyncratic and unscathed by any criticism, or something that’d show ingenuity. But, the simple truth is I had stage freight.
My blues licks in practice could split hairs, but on stage sounded like the drunken slurs of a cow. Sitting in my room, chords would flow through the air like a bag of feathers would float through space, but on stage my notes spilled on the air like vomit.
Knowing this, I always found people’s positive feedback as pity, or sometimes even sarcasm. Sometimes though, in the deep it of my heart of hearts, I knew that my music had a message and that message was my own.