I won't keep you in suspense -- we won!
I secretly recorded the audio of our set and, upon later listening, I have to say I was dismayed by several aspects of our performance. Most importantly, we played WAY TOO FAST. Like, whoa. I had some problems playing certain parts live and I was mostly just disappointed in myself, but it all made sense when I realized how ridiculously frantic our tempo was.
ANYWAYS. I want to direct your attention to this photo, taken by one of my friends.
This photo may not look all that remarkable but, to me, it's pretty unusual. I'm SMILING.
Before Finding Jupiter, I pretty much hated playing live. Hell, before just a few months ago, shows that I enjoyed were an exception rather than the rule. But as part of the band's ongoing efforts to make our live show more interesting and exciting, I've started to actually rock out, and, more importantly, to love doing it.
Our performance at Phi Psi's Battle really brought that effort to life for me. Most shows, I've been rocking out for myself, since it truly makes the experience more fun. But the atmosphere at Battle was unlike anything I've experienced before, largely because I had some amazing friends in the front row who made it their mission to pump up the crowd as much as possible.
Within 30 seconds of starting, I was literally drenched in sweat. Halfway through our set I thought I was going to throw up, I was rocking out so hard (I'm not even joking).
And in the last song of our first set, "Do It Again," when I played the second solo of the first bridge (you know what I'm talking about if you're familiar with the song), something really incredible happened. I was soloing in the middle of the stage, and five to ten members of the audience -- some of whom I had never met before -- were reaching out to me with their hands, like something you see at real concerts.
Something about that moment really struck me. I've never felt that good performing before.
In an ideal world, performing should be gratifying in and of itself. After all, you're not going to get through the bad gigs if you rely on the crowd. You've gotta love it no matter what.
But I know I'm stating the obvious when I say that the crowd makes a difference to any kind of performer. Maybe it's because I'm young or naive or whatever, but I felt electric on stage last night in a way that I never have before.
When we finished, Peter asked, "Can you believe there are people who get paid millions of dollars to do that every day?"
I can't, but I'd love to be one of them.
