”Photo Credit: Jorge Luis Reyes”
In the Previous Episode…
After a two week run across the Mayan Riviera, I decided to settle for a few weeks in Mérida. Thank to my good friend Javed of Nanishe Tlayudas, I was able to book a couple of shows in the Yucatan capital at a performance place called El
Getting My Guitar Back
Around 6 PM on Thursday, July 11th, two days before the show, I was able to get my guitar back from Manuel (the luthier guy in charge of the repair). I had passed two entire days without playing. Recuperating the guitar at night time on Thursday wasn’t ideal for me in terms of maximizing time for practice. I still managed to run the set and play on that night. The whole guitar repair adventure ended up costing me quite a bit. The price for the repair was actually fair. The fact that Manuel lived on the complete opposite side of where I am currently staying in Mérida made things more expensive for me. It took me four Uber rides to bring and recuperate the guitar on two separate nights. The amount of money I spent on all of the trips ended up equaling the cost of the repair.
Is the third time really the charm?
On Friday, my main goal was to play a fair amount to get ready for the show. After warming up, I wanted to make sure that no damage was done to the electrical part of the guitar during the bridge repair. I decided to plug my guitar to my Scarlett Pro audio interface and run my set with headphones. As I plugged in the guitar, I noticed that there was no sound coming out of the headphones. After making sure the sound-card, my jack cable, and my headphones were working OK, I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the guitar itself. I sent a message to Manuel, and also to another luthier named Raul who lived nearby specialized in electric guitars, asking both luthiers if they could help me out on short notice. I had a bit more than 24 hours in front of me before the first Black Sea Storm live show in history to solve this latest technical issue hitting me at a
I purchased my relatively cheap Chinese guitar on Christmas day in Querétaro last year. Since then, I changed all the machine heads and had to repair the bridge which had popped out due to the extreme weather conditions here in the Yucatan peninsula. This third incident started to make me think that it was probably time for me to buy a higher quality, more reliable guitar.
A Small Technical Intervention on the Guitar 30 Hours Before the Show
I was trying to troubleshoot the issue with the torch of my cellphone peeking through the soundhole of the instrument.
Now I needed to take all the strings off the guitar, which wasn’t a difficult task, but to put the strings back on was going to be more challenging, since all the strings were cut out of their excess, and there was absolutely no extra room for error. I don’t consider myself to be very good with my hands, but In less than 10 minutes I was able to solve the problem and put the strings back on the guitar. It was a huge relief to know that on this last day before the show, I could actually focus on playing rather than trying to solve technical issues.
I was going to make it to the show hopefully free of technical problems and continue my rock n’ roll journey further with my relatively cheap blue Chinese guitar. I played a reasonable amount of time on Friday to get ready for the show. I did not go over the board to stay fresh physically and emotionally for showtime. This is again one of the circumstances when I feel like rock n’ roll is a bit similar to soccer as far as getting ready for an event goes. As the game day approaches, you want to reduce the intensity of training. For my case, though I could not practice for two consecutive days during the week, and not willing to push too much on the final day made it that overall, I had lost valuable practice time. Despite all the little hiccups along the way during the week, I felt 100% ready to perform live.
The Day of the Show
On the actual day of the show, I was extremely excited. Show days are always dates I look forward to. They have a similar flavor to my birthdays. It had been a while I had not played one, so all the little routines such as making sure that I have all the things I needed in my gig-bag, writing the setlist and running the most challenging parts of the set reminded me the times I used to play live in a band regularly. Now I was all on my own. Although it could have felt a bit scary to be alone on stage, I was actually quite proud of myself to have brought Black Sea Storm to a place where I can do the entire process solo, without relying on bandmates, labels, recording sound engineers, and booking agents.
At the end of the day, one could say: “- It’s just a guy playing the guitar and singing on stage.” That is absolutely correct, but I feel the need to say that for me to be in that position of autonomy it actually took me about 28 years. 28 years of trying to figure out how to rock and make it, so it is a 24/7 sustainable lifestyle rather than something one does on the side or part-time.
At the Venue
I’ve made it to El
Soundcheck turns into a practice session
I decided to turn the last hour of soundcheck time at El Teatrito into a practice session. I had plenty of time ahead of me, I was the only act playing that night, what else one can ask for? So I took advantage of the situation and pretty much ran the whole set once during soundcheck.
Not wearing contact lenses anymore, colored stage lights, having to sing into a microphone while playing were all factors that made it that I had a hard time seeing my guitar strings properly. Also, I did pretty much my entire rock n’ roll career on the bass guitar, which has fewer and bigger strings. It definitely makes the strings more visible for someone like me who does not see very well in the dark without the glasses on. After running pretty much the entire set during soundcheck, I was able to find my marks. I wasn’t nervous before the show. I was actually very calm and happy to play on a proper stage with a sound system.
I could hear people gathering into the room next door. I was alone inside the main performance room. At one point, I decided to take a break from playing and sat on a chair facing the stage to relax and contemplate the stage of El
Few minutes before showtime I went back on stage took my guitar tuned it and got ready to play. Ricardo told me that he was going to let people in. I was actually happy to see that some people actually showed up. Headlining without a support act in a city where I never played before was a huge challenge for an act like mine to draw people to the show.
Showtime
People got into the performance room. There wasn’t a massive number of them, but enough to make the whole thing look and feel like a show. Ricardo gave a short speech to explain how the structure worked financially. There was no cover for the show, but people could pitch in money to help El Teatrito and Black Sea Storm. I think it’s a great way of doing things. That way, people who absolutely don’t have money can still go see shows, and people who can afford it can support the structure and people who are making the show happen.
The Danger of Not Being Nervous Before a Show
At that point, I was still not nervous at all. I started to play the first song on the setlist, “Kayıp Bir Aşk” to be more precise. I was fine for about 10 seconds into the song. Suddenly I had a rush of some natural chemical into my bloodstream. It took me by surprise. I wasn’t psychologically nervous, but now I had to deal with some pretty severe physical stress. My fingers got tense my right leg supporting the guitar started to shake at times. The good news was that I was still able to keep on playing, just not with the exact intention I wanted to give to the song. I felt challenged. I was making little mistakes I usually don’t make. I realized at one point that I had 44 more minutes to go before the end of the show, which seemed like an eternity at that point due to my current condition.
Somehow I was able to finish the song, OK. The surprise effect of the rush had passed, but the physical consequences were still present. In between the first and second song, I drank some water and told myself to go through the set no matter what. I needed to put up a fight to represent myself the best way possible, no matter what. I told myself if you fuck up a part just play the next portion of the song better than you ever played it before. As I progressed through the songs, I started to feel better, and during the more rockier parts of the set, I could actually channel the way I was feeling to support the song positively. It was more of a challenge to play some of the arpeggiated parts, and parts with vocals that contained position change on the guitar’s neck. Despite the challenging moments, I believe that I was still able to deliver the minimum to represent myself well.
Pulling it Off
As I made it to the second part of the setlist, I was utterly over the stress factor and started to enjoy myself playing live. After I was done with the set, I had mixed feelings. To me, I was only able to showcase 40% of how I could ideally interpret my own songs. I definitely felt like I got my ass kicked by my own repertoire, but at the same time, I was proud that I was able to pull it off all on my own staying positive no matter what. I never played the acoustic guitar live in my life before, and more importantly, I never played a live show alone. I played hundreds of shows before, but I always with a band.
Post-game Fun
After I finished the show, there was a Q.A session with the public. I felt like a professional soccer player at a post-game press conference. I believe that one of El Teatrito’s goal as a structure is to engage the dialog between people. The actual session ended up being a lot of fun for me. Spanish is my fourth learned language, so I’m sure there were funny moments for native speakers that I couldn’t even spot. After the session was over. There was a group of young people who wanted to meet me and take pictures with me. That felt extremely good. Getting positive feedback from people felt very comforting. This gave me a lot of hope for Black Sea Storm’s future as a live act. Thinking that I could only represent myself at a mere 40% from my true potential, but from the outside that 40% was sufficient enough to be perceived as a good show it seemed like.
Doing Homework After the Exam
I was thrilled that the show had turned out to be a successful one. That said I did not forget that there were moments during the set I got my ass kicked severely. I also could sense that some moments of the set were weak in a live setup. I decided that I was not going to rest, and start working on improvements the same night to make things better for the second show I had scheduled for in a week.
Although I felt tired and picking up the guitar was the last thing I wanted to do coming back home. I am glad I did that exercise. All the little fuck-ups during the show were still fresh in my head. After I went through the parts which appeared disastrous to me during the live performance, I started to rewrite some parts and started to think about how I could modify the setlist so the songs would flow better and take into account the state of mind I would be in when playing the first couple of songs of the setlist. This was extremely exciting. I felt like a soccer manager having to change the play formation to win the second leg of a match in the