A huge crowd listens to me performing on an amazing build at SL14B's Second Life Music Fest. Photo by Thea Dee.
It's funny, the way things go.
As Robert Burns once wrote, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." My plans, as of a week ago, were to do four shows in six days. I'm happy to say that I made it through three of them, and each of those was outstanding. And then I awoke today feeling horribly sick, and had to cancel the fourth and final show, which was to be at Elysium City of Templemore. Neither my voice nor -- perhaps more importantly for my kind of show, my energy level -- was nearly up to the task. However, I'm not here to dwell on the one show that didn't happen. Instead, let's talk about yesterday's excellent gig for the Second Life Music Fest at SL14B.
Some background: a couple of years ago, in 2015, I performed at the first official Second Life Music Fest. I found it to be a really cool experience. A couple of months ago, I got a message from Xiola Linden, the lead community manager for Linden Lab. She wanted to know if I'd be interested in performing at this year's event as part of the SL14B festivities.
It's interesting because as most of you know, I'd been performing less in Second Life over the past year or so than any time going back to my start in 2006. The reason was simply that I have limited time to devote to musical activities, and creating my band They Stole My Crayon's debut album had chomped up many of the hours that I could have previously used to do live shows in SL and otherwise. When Xiola sent her invitation, I had to think twice as to whether or not I was a good choice to represent Second Life musical artists at this big show.
Me, performing live at Second Life Music Fest. Photo by Thea Dee.
By happenstance, I'd recently told my manager Maali Beck that we could start gradually ramping up my shows in SL. The band's album was successfully released last year, so I was cool with getting back into playing more frequent SL gigs. Well, who knows why these things happen, but it was shortly after Xiola contacted me that Maali booked some new venues for me, and other things started popping up to the point that I suddenly had four shows in six days lined up. So, any concern I might have had about about my validity as a proper representative of SL music was kind of out the window.
None of this matters, by the way, because I'd accepted Xiola's invitation immediately on the spot, and all that other crap was just floating around my head for awhile.
As you can see from the pictures, the build for the area was outstanding. I really expect nothing less of those folks, but they never fail to impress me. The Music Fest portion of the event was held on their Stage Left build. It was so massive that I barely was able to visualize it in its entirety, but the huge work of art itself was titled "The Guardian", created by artist Walton F. Wainwright (known in SL as Faust Steamer). The stage was perched on top. To get there, they'd set up an interesting teleport mechanism. People rezzed at the bottom of a nearly vertical set of steps, and then would go into a little pool and pop up near the performance area.
"The Guardian" structure at SL14B. You can see the large stage area on top, being dwarfed by the overall structure. Photo by Triana Caldera.
Exactly three minutes after I strummed my first note, an alert went out that we SL musicians enjoy hearing, when we rarely do...
[14:03] Laura Polke shouts: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THE MESMORIZED SIM IS FULL! PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ENTER
For any non-Second Life people reading this, that message means that the area of Second Life where I was performing was so packed with attendees that it could literally not accommodate another person. Think of it like a server that's hit its limit in data storage. In real life terms, it's the equivalent of a venue selling out and hitting its maximum capacity. For any person to get in at that point, it meant someone else had to leave. My show remained filled to capacity for the entire hour. Much of that is due to the fact that these events are promoted far and wide. The night before, an email blast about the Music Fest had gone out to literally millions of Second Life users, with my name as the headliner for day one. If I couldn't get a maximum crowd under those circumstances, there was no other situation that would be more promising.
Doing my Zak Rock for a big and presumably happy crowd. Photo by Triana Caldera.
The only challenge involved for this show was choosing a set list. It's not as easy as it seems. In total, I've got somewhere in the range of 400 songs that I am comfortable and prepared to perform live as a solo artist. Some of these are originals (both from my solo work and my band), and the rest are covers that span many different genres, eras, and vibes. For an event like this, where people from all areas of the world and all walks of life are represented, I tend to try and meet a number of goals:
1. Play the stuff that I can do well.
2. Make sure to use the opportunity to expose people who haven't heard me before to my (and my band's) original music.
3. Play songs that people are familiar with so they can relate to and enjoy the performance.
4. Don't be afraid to perform some cool music that perhaps most people haven't heard, but might like once they hear it.
It's not easy to hit each of those goals with just 12-13 songs possible in a one hour time slot. Compounding the task was the fact that, disturbingly, I was feeling a scratchiness in my throat not long before I was to start my show, which further removed my confidence that I'd be able to perform at my best level. Had my SL14B Music Fest show been slated for today or tomorrow, there's no way I'd have been able to go on. But since I was apparently just on the verge of getting sick as I obviously am now, I got through the show pretty well.
Second Life Music Festival at SL14B set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Never Run Away (Kurt Vile)
America (Simon & Garfunkel)
Blew the Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Carey (Joni Mitchell)
Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
Carry Me Ohio (Sun Kil Moon)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Fire & Rain (James Taylor)
After The Goldrush (Neil Young)
Pigs On The Wing - Parts 1 & 2 (Pink Floyd)
One of the great things about playing an event like SL14B is the chance to have a bunch of people who'd never heard me before to listen to my performance. There was a nice, big crowd for the whole show. Photo by Triana Caldera.
Xiola, the enthusiastic lead community manager for Second Life maker Linden Lab, surrounded by my friends and fans. Photo by Thea Dee.
I always enjoy each opportunity to show the world how Second Life remains a remarkable platform for live music performance. Photo by Thea Dee.
Thanks so much to all the people involved in Second Life Music Fest and SL14B, with special mention of the following people who helped support my show!
strum Diesel, Agadir Flanagan, LadyNyah Resident, Isadoradean Rossini, Asimia Heron, Luriel Lykin, Kathleen Blachere, Lampithaler Resident, Triana Caldera, Jennytryit Resident, TheaDee Resident, stage/stream managers CB Axel and Laura Polke, SL14B leads Diana Renoir and Doc Gascoigne, and the amazing Xiola Linden!
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