Three Hours

In a little over three hours I’m going to be in Rockland setting up for a 5:30 show on the North Stage at the Rockland Lobster Festival. This is a big show for us. Not only are we getting paid, but we’re getting paid to perform at one of the biggest events in the region. I’m super excited.

But it’s not so much the venue I’m excited about. I’m excited about having the opportunity to play on another stage, to continue to work on this amazing craft that is putting on a show. Over the last year and half I’ve learned that playing in a band isn’t just about practicing your instrument and knowing your words. It’s not about getting up on stage and not making mistakes. It’s about how you get on stage.

I had an epiphany recently: being in a band is no different than being in a play. We each have our part to play, we have our assigned bits, we even have lines.

Recently we’ve begun adding a little more stage direction to our shows, to create more dynamic between us when we’re up on stage. We had a three hour rehearsal this week in which we set up microphone stands in our living room to practice our movements around the stage. We’ve been experimenting with different mic set ups, trying to work out which is the best for our band. For tonight’s show we’ve settled on a condenser mic for all of us to sing around and two instrument mics at the side, with the bass mic’d separately. It’s helped to create a lot of good movement on the stage. It’s a ton of fun for us and hopefully it’ll be fun for the audience too.