Labor Day Weekend 2014. Miners Creek Band entered the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Special Band Competition. We didn’t win, but we did connect up with some of the other bands who competed.
On August 22nd, we played on WERU community radio (To listen to that show click here). Before we went on air we sent out an email to remind our fans (I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we have fans. This whole experience with the band has been fairly surreal, considering that I only really joined because I didn’t have anything else to do) that we’ll be playing and that they should tune in. When we went off the air, there was an email in our inbox from one of the members of the Thomas Point Beach bands asking if we’d be available to fill in at a festival in Vermont over Labor Day Weekend. That’s two weeks notice and we needed to respond ASAP
We were sitting in McCleod’s, a restaurant in Bucksport. There were tropical fish tanks with clown fish and whatever kind of fish Dory was from Finding Nemo. It turned out the owners son is a musician who spent time in Nashville. The waitress took our photo, saying she’d post it on the restaurant’s Facebook page. That’s when mom saw the email asking if we could play. We all sort of looked at each other, gazes jumping around the circle, every body making eye contact with every one else. “Could this be it? Our big break?” our eyes seemed to say. Finally, we talked it over and agreed that we’d be stupid not to jump on the opportunity to play a festival that we didn’t put on ourselves and we were actually getting paid to come to. We said yes.
We spent the past two weeks trying unsuccessfully not freak out about the fact that we had to come up with enough material for four fifty-five minute sets. We had some very intense rehearsals working out songs that we almost had down pat. Turns out there’s a pretty big difference between almost down and actually down. There’s nothing quite so frustrating as not quite knowing a song. I think it’s because you feel like you ought to know what you’re doing, or it should be easy to get that last little bit that’s giving you trouble. Most of the frustration is in the pressure you put on yourself to get things right. I’m learning that a big part of performing is learning to let go of that pressure and to simply enjoy what happens no matter what happens.
Thursday, we began our journey to Vermont with a quick stop at Thomas Point Beach to see Twisted Pine (the winners of the aforementioned band competition) and Hot Rize (anyone who’s never heard of Hot Rize needs to stop what they’re doing this instant and go listen to one of their albums. I recommend “When I’m Free”). Nerves built up in my stomach as we drove further into the green mountains and valleys of Vermont. I did my best to squash them down and was more or less successful. We pulled into the festival and immediately saw someone we’ve met not only at other festivals but at Maine Fiddle Camp. He said that he hadn’t been planning on staying all weekend, but then he’d seen that we’d be playing and he’d decided he would stay after all. Talk about a confidence boost. We saw other people we knew from other festivals. It was truly lovely and friendly and I think we all let out a huge sigh of relief. We’d be playing for our friends, no different really from any of our other shows.
We played our sets (four over the course of the weekend), yes we made some mistakes, but no one minded. The biggest critique we got, if you could call it that, was that my bass needs a pick-up. People liked us. They clapped for us. They bought our CDs and T-shirts. We got two encores for one of our sets. It felt so wonderful to be embraced by the North Branch community, to be smiled at, to know that we can in fact do this. That we can play in the same line up with bands that I consider to be better than us, more professional than us, and be liked.
This weekend I had that funny feeling of being caught between feeling like an impostors and the real deal. Half of me kept wondering when the other shoe would drop, when people would catch on to the fact that we’ve only been a band for less than two years, that I’d only first picked up a bass less than two years ago. But the other half of me – the bigger half – was proud at how far we’ve been able to go in less than two years. We’re not impostors, we’ve worked hard to get to where we are. We’ve put ourselves out there and gone for this and so far it’s been working out. And I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
Thank you for reading.
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