THE NERVES HAVE KICKED IN. IT'S GETTING NEAR.

[Kandinskyesque]

First gig in 5 years this Saturday. My neighbours Art Centre/Park grand opening and I'm doing three 1hr long sets between 5pm and the wee hours to 150 people. Most important attendees are 2 of my grand kids; most of the others are art/media/journalism types.

I've never felt this unready. Spent all day making up wiring looms, making online express delivery purchases where bits of equipment have been found to be unrepairable or too risky, programming effects boards/guitar synth, and sorting out niggles on my guitars.

I just want to get rehearsing in my usual way which is one flawless run through of each song which equals one overtightened nerve of my body slackened off.

I've only managed 3 consecutive vertical days due to my condition for a month now, so I'm having to watch the fatigue levels. Otherwise I'd be quite happy to pull a few long shifts. I've added a 3rd 4 hour sleep to my usual 2 to compensate.

Too add to that, the day after the gig, I'm going on holiday (the beautiful Moray coast), my first in 10 years.
The holiday won't be one of those relaxing ones; it me, Mrs K and 4 hyper grandkids aged 8, 6, 4 and 2. Mrs K is taking 2 of them up on Saturday and I'll follow on with the other 2 on Sunday. That stuff needs organised too since my aspie brain won't allow for less than military precision.

Does anybody have some brain and body power they could lend me?
I promise I'll pay you back with interest. I'm an honourable soul.

 

[aging_rocker]

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be fine once you get going!
I can't spare a lot of brain power these days, but you are welcome to what's left....

 

[Timbresmith1]

Good luck. I sent a gigabank ea of cellboooster body, and brainthruster via the securepsych portal. Retrieval code is your name spelled backward.

 

[SuprHtr]

Deep breaths. And remember that none of this is going to kill you!

 

[39martind18]

Good vibes headed your way, they're Texan, so larger than any others. Use 'em in good health!

 

[0SubSeanik0]

You're just doing something you love to do, and your grand kids (and 148 of their new friends) will be there to enjoy it with you. Have fun, and they surely will, too!

Grandma and the kids will take care of themselves on holiday, lol.

 

[ce24]

Sounds like you're going to be background music…concentrated listening will be sparse….your good to go. Enjoy!

 

[Fretting out]

Sounds like you're going to be background music…concentrated listening will be sparse….your good to go. Enjoy!

Even if you’re not background music this is a good way to imagine it!

That’s good advice

I could even probably do a show if I believe no one is really listening

 

[Kandinskyesque]

Even if you’re not background music this is a good way to imagine it!

Great advice.

The only important songs I've got to play id the one my 4 year old music obsessed grandson has been asking me to play for weeks: U2's "Where the Streets.." and Mercury Rev's "Holes" (I already do the latter) apparently they're in the Pixar Movie "Sing 2".

The first song came out before I met his grandmother, it's almost like me asking my own grandfather to sing me some Al Jolson.

 

[Peegoo]

You'll do just fine. Go in practiced and prepared and it will be a cakewalk.

Break a leg!

 

[gimmeatele]

Have fun and enjoy, U am sure the nerves will be gone by the third song.

 

[Skyhook]

apparently they're in the Pixar Movie "Sing 2".

Sing 2 is a Universal/Illumination film. You know... the studio that brought you these guys:

Pictured: Not the intellectual property of Disney/Pixar.
​

Helpful image of me posting this reply below.

... I'll get me coat

 

[Tonetele]

Have a good show- break a leg ( figuratively).

 

[hemingway]

Expect the worst. Then when it's ok you'll feel great.

Honestly, though, it sounds like one of those gigs you'll enjoy more in hindsight. I did one last week, first gig in 2 years.

I built it up so much that it felt flat to me, even though we went down really well.

In the days after it, though, the pleasure kicked in with all the good feedback.

So tell yourself it's going to be terrible . . .

 

[KeithDavies 100]

Don't stress over it, K. The niggles you think are there will go unnoticed by everyone else.

No-one else is going to think you can't do this. This is who you are, and what you've been doing forever.

Keep practicing right up to Saturday, and then enjoy the experience.

You said previously there's some John Martyn in the set. I reckon he'll be there, and he'll keep you right.

The equivalence between Where The Streets... and Al Jolson made me smile. We really are THAT old, apparently!

Will be thinking of you, Saturday.

 

[eddiewagner]

After two minutes things will be easy

 

[peteycaster]

I'd be more worried about the holiday than the gig! 4 grandkids!! You sound like you have the gig sorted so good luck and don't over stress. All the best from down here.

 

[joebloggs13]

Mojo sent...break a leg!

 

[1955]

I remember the feelings, fear, doubt, and pressure, searching my contrite heart with pleading negotiations and promises, meticulous rituals of busywork, repetitions of conditioned familiarity, obsessively checking over the tangibles, micro adjustments, lists, adrenaline forecasts of every possible scenario, seeing the future through the eyes of strangers and enemies, tucking crutches behind overcoats darkened in shadows of emergencies, running across my mind to interrupt myself, to pull myself back from rehearsing those disassociated trajectories, to hurriedly push the familiar monsters under my cobweb bed, sweating the wrenching inevitability of porcelain nerves and death gripped steering wheels, chest breaths screaming beneath steamed shirts, tunneled impossibility vision into the halo lights and head silhouettes, oh who was I to be this person right now, to bear this anvil on the rickety precipice, to wake with a start from splintered sleep?

The horror awaits, the oil steams over the tall stone walls and the archers arrayed immaculate in technicolor poise, the impenetrable doors so perfectly hewn and hung tight in iron.

It is I, I would say, it is I who must robe through the sea of grimaced arms, jeers and spittle, clog clumsily up the creaking scaffold stairs, and accept the sack over my head with grace and regret, even though I don’t know why. It is too late to bid farewell to all my potential and broken hopes, to what my life could have been if the turns in the canopied path were not so curious, it is I that must be mocked and disdained, ridiculed for sport, and slathered with basting over the eye fires of hahas. I am not alive, or able to breathe, I am the fodder of the fortunates who arrive like wolves in shiny vitamin sheen.

Trembling and reverence, desperation and gnashing, cursing and crying, cold mirrors fogging.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I remember the feelings, fear, doubt, and pressure, searching my contrite heart with pleading negotiations and promises, meticulous rituals of busywork, repetitions of conditioned familiarity, obsessively checking over the tangibles, micro adjustments, lists, adrenaline forecasts of every possible scenario, seeing the future through the eyes of strangers and enemies, tucking crutches behind overcoats darkened in shadows of emergencies, running across my mind to interrupt myself, to pull myself back from rehearsing those disassociated trajectories, to hurriedly push the familiar monsters under my cobweb bed, sweating the wrenching inevitability of porcelain nerves and death gripped steering wheels, chest breaths screaming beneath steamed shirts, tunneled impossibility vision into the halo lights and head silhouettes, oh who was I to be this person right now, to bear this anvil on the rickety precipice, to wake with a start from splintered sleep?

The horror awaits, the oil steams over the tall stone walls and the archers arrayed immaculate in technicolor poise, the impenetrable doors so perfectly hewn and hung tight in iron.

It is I, I would say, it is I who must robe through the sea of grimaced arms, jeers and spittle, clog clumsily up the creaking scaffold stairs, and accept the sack over my head with grace and regret, even though I don’t know why. It is too late to bid farewell to all my potential and broken hopes, to what my life could have been if the turns in the canopied path were not so curious, it is I that must be mocked and disdained, ridiculed for sport, and slathered with basting over the eye fires of hahas. I am not alive, or able to breathe, I am the fodder of the fortunates who arrive like wolves in shiny vitamin sheen.

Trembling and reverence, desperation and gnashing, cursing and crying, cold mirrors fogging.

Brilliant.
Where is that from?